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It is with great sadness that we share the news Drew Struzan, legendary movie poster artist who worked on iconic pieces for franchises such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back To The Future, and Blade Runner, has died aged 78. Earlier this year, we learned that Struzan had long since been living with Alzheimer's disease and his condition was such that he could no longer paint or make public appearances.
In a statement shared on Drew's Instagram, brother Greg Struzan wrote the following: "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."
Born in Oregon on 18 March, 1947, Drew Struzan's bond with art began at a very young age. By the artist's own admission, he came from a very poor background, and as such drawing was as much a means of escape and entertainment as a personal passion. "I drew on toilet paper with pencils – that was the only paper around," Struzan recalled in a 1999 interview with The Orange County Register. "Probably why I love drawing so much today is because it was just all I had at the time.”
If Drew Struzan's journey as an artist began out of necessity however, its flourishing came from pure talent. Having graduated from ArtCenter College of Design, Los Angeles in 1970, Struzan quickly made waves as an album cover illustrator, creating memorable pieces for artists from Carole King to Black Sabbath to Alice Cooper — the latter of whom's Welcome To My Nightmare cover, by Struzan, featured among Rolling Stone's 100 Classic Album Covers. Before long, Struzan's skill for using illustration as an extension — an expansion — of an artist's storytelling, combining bold colour choices, fine details, and character-driven composition naturally progressed to one-sheet work for movies.
At the dawn of blockbuster movies as we know them today, Drew Struzan's film posters met the sense of occasion with aplomb. Across the late 70s and into the 80s, Struzan's signature airbrush art adorned the one-sheets for *deep breath* Star Wars, The Muppet Movie, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, Back To The Future, The Thing, E.T, First Blood, Police Academy, and The Cannonball Run, to name but a few. And though Hollywood would start to digitise in the nineties and as a new millennium rapidly approached, reducing the amount of traditional poster art being commissioned, Struzan's brilliance persisted — in the shining silver of Hook's one-sheet, in the warm and wizarding candlelight of Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone's, in the glowering amber and red eyes looming over The Phantom Menace's.
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While Drew Struzan officially retired as a poster artist after his work on 2008's Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, his work did not end there. In 2012, the artist picked up the pencil once again to work with Mondo on a cover for Stephen King's The Dark Tower; in 2013, documentary Drew Struzan: The Man Behind The Poster released, featuring contributions from the likes of Guillermo del Toro, Harrison Ford, and Struzan's longtime collaborator Steven Spielberg; and in 2015, Disney marked the release of its first Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, by commissioning a Struzan original. The last officially released new movie poster from Drew Struzan actually came eleven years after his retirement, in 2019, when he produced three new posters for Dreamworks' How To Train Your Dragon trilogy.
Since news broke of Drew Struzan's passing, there has been no shortage of filmmakers, friends, peers, and fans sharing their love for the man and his work. Of his friend's legacy, Steven Spielberg wrote, "Drew made event art. His posters made many of our movies into destinations…and the memory of those movies and the age we were when we saw them always comes flashing back just by glancing at his iconic photorealistic imagery. In his own invented style, nobody drew like Drew." Elsewhere, in a statement shared by THR, Guillermo del Toro — whose Pan's Labyrinth received a beautiful Struzan one-sheet — said, "The world lost a genial man, a genius communicator and supreme artist. I lost a friend — beloved Drew."
In a heartfelt statement posted by the Struzan family on Instagram, a request is made to "please take a moment to reflect on what he brought to you." Drew Struzan brought us wonder, magic, and a body of work that will undoubtedly continue to bring joy and inspiration to movie lovers for generations to come. What's more, his life is a reminder that a great artist truly can come from anywhere, whether you have the finest tools at your disposal or nothing more than a piece of toilet paper and a pencil. He will be missed terribly, and our thoughts are with his friends, family, and loved ones at this very difficult time.