“It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that Drew Struzan has moved on from this world as of yesterday, October 13th. I feel it is important that you all know how many times he expressed to me the joy he felt knowing how much you appreciated his art.”
That message was left today on the official Instagram account of Drew Struzan, an artist beloved to generations of film fans for his striking movie posters. Struzan was 78 years old.
Although Struzan will be remembered best for a handful of painted posters he created for several of the biggest genre hits of the 1980s and ’90s, he was a very versatile artist. In addition to his film work, he also painted book and album covers. He could capture an actor’s likeness with uncanny accuracy, but he was also capable of exaggerating characters for the purposes of an illustration. Many of his most famous posters have a photorealistic quality but others are heavily stylized and heightened. He always seemed to know exactly what a poster needed for maximum impact.
Instead of a typical obituary, the only tribute that seems to make sense here is a celebration of his work. Struzan maintained a website with images of much of his portfolio, but for a sense of the best of the best of his posters, I picked 15 of my favorites to list here. Certainly, there are many more. But these are the ones that I will personally remember first.
Drew Struzan’s Greatest Movie Posters
In honor of the late great poster artist, here are 15 of his greatest pieces.
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