Iconic movie poster artist Drew Struzan — who created the marketing art for an enormous number of popular films — has died at the age of 78. Struzan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease several years ago and retreated from public life.
Struzan’s official Instagram account announced the news on Tuesday: “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.”
Struzan was once dubbed the “one-sheet wonder,” a go-to artist for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, who created the posters for films such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Risky Business, the special edition of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future, The Goonies, The Thing and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
The artist’s signature style was bold, dramatic and colorful. He never failed to capture a film’s tone perfectly, often focusing heavily on its characters — layering a sprawling ensemble cast into a single image was a Struzan specialty. Spielberg once called him “my favorite movie artist” and later added, “I had to almost live up to the art that we later were going to ask Drew to create for the poster.”
Drew Struzan
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At a tribute to Struzan back in 2018, the artist said, “I’m thinking about my childhood and how I never had a birthday party, never had a good meal, everywhere I went, I worked my ass off. Nothing was ever given to me before, except by these lovely people” — referring to the directors who hired him over the years.
At the tribute, How to Train Your Dragon filmmaker Dean DeBlois said he could rarely afford to go to the movies as a kid and that Struzan’s immersive posters became a way to relive films. “I could go to the theater and stare at the poster and try to recall everything about the film,” he said. “And it just jogged my imagination.”
Reactions to Struzan’s passing began to pour in following the announcement. DC president and Batman artist Jim Lee wrote, “A giant among giants. His work captured the humanity, power and emotion of his subjects in ways not seen since. Thank you for bringing to life all the tentpole moments of my childhood and beyond.”
While Marvel artist J. Scott Campbell wrote: “Very heartbreaking to read this and to wrap my mind around the finality of it all, of an amazing man and the legacy of incredible work. He has left us all with so much beauty to enjoy for generations to come. I know the past few years have been especially difficult and I can only hope that this gives him and all of his loved ones some sense of peace.”
Struzan’s work was chronicled by director Erik Sharkey in the 2013 documentary Drew: The Man Behind the Poster.
When asked which poster was his favorite, he would reply: “If I had a favorite, then I would have already done the best I can do. I’d lose my spark of creativity. My favorite is always the very next one.”