Drew Struzan’s name might not be familiar to the wider art world, but his art certainly is. Struzan designed instantly recognizable posters for countless Hollywood movies, among them, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Hocus Pocus, The Goonies, Mallrats, and The Muppet Movie.
Struzan’s wife, writer Dylan Struzan, announced on Instagram that he died on October 13 at age 78 after a years-long battle with Altzheimer’s. “Daily he tended the flame reviewing the paintings of those he long admired. Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne. The Impressionists who fought diligently against the status quo,” Dylan wrote in the post announcing Struzan’s passing.
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When she shared more about Struzan’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis in March of this year, she wrote that Struzan was “deeply influenced” by Lorser Feitelson, his professor at the Art Center of College and Design in Pasadena and a founder of the hard-edge style of abstraction that was popular in Southern California at the time. He was also, according to Dylan, influenced by the Impressionists, and “his drawing skills were informed by the likes of Michelangelo and Pontormo.”
According to the Hollywood Reporter, “[Struzan’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. [Steven] 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.’”
Variety ranked Struzan’s 10 best movie posters, focusing on the original oil paintings, with all typography removed. Tarzan the Ape Man topped the list.