Drew Struzan | |
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.jpg) Struzan at the 2012San Diego Comic-Con | |
| Born | (1947-03-18)March 18, 1947 (age 78) Oregon City, Oregon, U.S. |
| Education | ArtCenter College of Design |
| Known for | Poster art,illustration |
| Spouse | Dylan Struzan |
| Children | 1 |
| Awards | Saturn Award, 2002 Inkpot Award, 2010 Saul Bass Award, 2014 Sergio Award, 2016 Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, 2020 |
| Website | drewstruzan |
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Drew Struzan (/ˈstruːzən/; born March 18, 1947[1]) is an American artist, illustrator and cover designer. He is known for his more than 150movie posters, which includeThe Shawshank Redemption,Blade Runner,E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, as well as films in theIndiana Jones,Back to the Future,Harry Potter, andStar Wars film series.[2] He has also painted album covers, collectibles, and book covers.
Struzan was born on March 18, 1947, inOregon City, Oregon.[3] In 1965, at age 18, he enrolled at theArtCenter College of Design, then in West Los Angeles.[citation needed]
A counselor asked Struzan about his interests and told him he had a choice between fine art or illustration. The counselor described the two careers, telling Struzan that as a fine artist he could paint whatever he wanted, but as an illustrator he could paint for money. Struzan chose to be an illustrator, saying, "I need to eat."[4] In his first year, he married and became a father.[5] Struzan worked his way through school by selling his artwork and accepting small commissions. He graduated in five years, earning aBachelor of Arts degree with honors. He also completed two years of graduate studies,[6] and eventually returned to the school in later years, after the campus relocated toPasadena, California, to teach for a short time.
About his career, Struzan has said: "I was poor and hungry, and illustration was the shortest path to a slice of bread, as compared to a gallery showing. I had nothing as a child. I drew on toilet paper with pencils – that was the only paper around. Probably why I love drawing so much today is because it was just all I had at the time."[7]
After graduating from college, Struzan remained in Los Angeles, and a trip to an employment agency found him a job as a staff artist forPacific Eye & Ear, a design studio. There he began designing album covers under the direction ofErnie Cefalu, relishing the creative aspects the 12x12" size the record packaging afforded him. Over the next 5 years, he would create album cover artwork for a long line of musical artists, includingTony Orlando and Dawn,The Beach Boys,Bee Gees,Roy Orbison,Black Sabbath,Glenn Miller,Iron Butterfly,Bach,Earth, Wind & Fire, andLiberace. He also illustrated the t-shirt thatGeorge Carlin wears on the front and back cover of his albumToledo Window Box.[8]
Among these, Struzan illustrated the album cover artwork forAlice Cooper'sWelcome to My Nightmare, whichRolling Stone would go on to vote one of the Top 100 Album Covers Of All Time.[9][deprecated source] Despite the burgeoning demand for his talents, however, Struzan was still only earning $150 to $250 per album cover.[10]
Along with a friend with a background in the movie industry, Struzan started a small company, Pencil Pushers, in a collaboration that would last eight years. It was during this time that he honed his distinctive one-sheet style and first became proficient in the use of the airbrush, which would later define him as a master of the tool. His first film poster works started appearing in 1975, although in those early days Struzan mainly did artwork forB-movies, such asEmpire of the Ants,Food of the Gods, andSquirm. While his talent steadily grew in demand, it was his work done for a major science-fiction movie that would establish Struzan and his work in the public eye forever.
In 1977 fellow artist Charles White III, well known for his own airbrush prowess, had been hired by David Weitzner, Vice President of advertising at 20th Century Fox, to create a poster design for the 1978 re-release ofStar Wars. White, uncomfortable with portraiture, asked Struzan for his help on the project. As such, Struzan painted the human characters in oil paints and White focused on the ships,Darth Vader,C-3PO, and all the mechanical details of the poster art.[11]
The unique poster design, popularly called the "Circus" poster, depicts what appears to be a torn posted bill on a plywood construction site wall. "It was necessity that invented that," Struzan explains. "They found out there wasn't enough room for the typography and the billing block they had left in the design. What can we do to make more space on a poster that's already been printed? Let's pretend it's posted, then they can put the type below the actual poster. We paintedObi-Wan down the side and stuff across the bottom to make it wider and deeper."[12]
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Struzan produced poster work for such films asThe Seven-Per-Cent Solution,Blade Runner,The Thing,The Cannonball Run, thePolice Academy series,Back to the Future,Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,The Muppet Movie,Coming to America,First Blood,Risky Business,D.C. Cab,Stroker Ace,Batteries Not Included,An American Tail, andThe Goonies. By the 1980s, Struzan was producing approximately ten poster designs a year.[citation needed]
During this period, Struzan continued his association with Lucas by designing the originalIndustrial Light & Magic logo, and creating the associated one-sheet artwork for both the continuingStar Wars saga and theIndiana Jones series of films. In the process, Struzan's work became, in the public mind, the defining visual images representing those series. As such, he was also sought after to create new artwork for re-releases and reissues on video and DVD, book covers, theme-park rides and video game titles for those properties.[citation needed]
In the 1990s, with the advent of computers and digital manipulation of images utilized to create poster art, Struzan was affected by the decline of traditionally illustrated poster art. While continuing to create artwork for such 1990s and 2000s films asHook,Hellboy and the American poster forHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, he started exploring other outlets for his work, including comic books, limited-edition art, and the collectible market. As such, his work has been featured on such diverse items asFranklin Mint collectible plates, including a twelve-piece set commemorating the life of Princess Diana, the 1996 cover forParker Brothers board gameClue,[13][14] and over 30 U.S. postage stamps, including the 2004John Wayne stamp and the 2007James Stewart stamp.[15][16]
Struzan once lamented on the decline of traditional art in an e-mail exchange:
I love the texture of paint made of colored earth, of oil from the trees and of canvas and paper. I love the expression of paint from a brush or a hand smearing charcoal, the dripping of paint and moisture of water, the smell of the materials. I delight in the changeable nature of a painting with new morning light or in the afternoon when the sun turns a painting orange or by firelight at night. I love to see it, hold it, touch it, smell it, and create it. My gift is to share my life by allowing others to see into my heart and spirit through such tangible, comprehensible and familiar means. The paint is part of the expression.[17]
From 1995 through 1997, Struzan's work was shown throughoutJapan in a series of one-man exhibitions, which offered his one-sheet work of Lucas and Spielberg films in a successful limited-edition program.
In 1999, in an exhibit entitledDrew: Art of the Cinema, Struzan had over 65 pieces of his artwork presented at theNorman Rockwell Museum inStockbridge, Massachusetts.[18]
For the release ofStar Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,George Lucas dictated that, contractually, Struzan's poster was the only art the foreign distributors could use, and other than the text, it could not be modified in any way.[19]
In 2008, Struzan in collaboration with his art director son, Christian, created the official poster for the 80thAcademy Awards.[20]
After completing the extensive artwork required for the campaign ofIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Struzan announced his retirement on September 3, 2008.[21]
In 2009, Struzan (in collaboration with Jim Sanders of Reel Ideas) produced a DVD,Conceiving and Creating the Hellboy Movie Poster Art, as a step-by-step documentation of his creative process, techniques, and industrial experience. Shot in his studio, the DVD is intended to provide an over-the-shoulder look at the thinking and techniques that go into Struzan's posters.
A February 2009 exhibit entitledDrew Struzan: An Artist's Vision at Gallery Nucleus inAlhambra, California, presented select pieces of the artist's for the first public exhibit in 10 years.[22]
In September 2009, Struzan produced an image for publication inKurv magazine of Mattel'sBarbie, in celebration of that doll's 50th anniversary year.
The 2013 documentary,Drew: The Man Behind The Poster, directed by Erik Sharkey, examines Struzan's life and work, and features interviews with filmmakers and actors involved with films for which Struzan has done poster work, includingFrank Darabont,Harrison Ford,George Lucas,Michael J. Fox,Steve Guttenberg,Guillermo del Toro,Steven Spielberg andThomas Jane.[23] The film was scored by award-winning composerRyan Shore.[24]
Struzan came out of retirement to design posters for the 2015 documentaryBatkid Begins: The Wish Heard Around The World[25] andStar Wars: The Force Awakens.[26]
In December 2017, to celebrate Struzan's 70th birthday, Robert Townson,Varèse Sarabande and theGolden State Pops Orchestra produced the tributeThe Magnificent Movie Poster World of Drew Struzan – live in concert which featured Struzan's artwork displayed to the live orchestral performance of associated film music. The performance included composersThomas Newman,John Debney,Brian Tyler,Marco Beltrami,Robert Folk, and Michael Kosarin, as guest conductors.[27][28][29]
In January 2019, for the release ofHow to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World Struzan came out of retirement again to create three separate posters for theHow to Train Your Dragon film trilogy.[30] This series followed the exclusiveComic-Con poster Struzan did for the release ofHow to Train Your Dragon 2 in 2013.[31]
Published in 2019, Struzan illustrated the bookA Bloody BusinessISBN 978-1785657702 aboutprohibition andorganized crime, written by his wife Dylan Struzan.[32]
To create his finished work projects, Struzan starts by sketching out drawings ongessoed illustration board, then tinting the draftsmanship with airbrushed acrylic paint, finishing up the highlights and other details with colored pencils and more airbrush if needed. The gessoed foundation allows Struzan the luxury of being able to accommodate any requested changes to the work. Preferring to work on a 1 to 1 scale, Struzan's one-sheet work would be approximately 27 x 40 inches, the size of a printed movie poster. Working from reference photographs and live models, Struzan has been known at times to include depictions of himself, family members, and friends in his work. He is known for working very quickly, as it typically takes him a week to two weeks to finish a painting. With the theatrical release of theStar Wars special editions, Struzan created the three-panel triptych within the limited four-week deadline. The poster artwork forJohn Carpenter's 1982 remake ofThe Thing was created overnight, Struzan having received that assignment less than a day before the finished poster was needed.[33]
Working from a backyard studio, Struzan lives in California with his wife, Dylan. He has a son named Christian[34] and since retiring from full-time work in 2008 spends much of his time caring for his grandchildren.[35]
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