I had a few people over to my place last night, and my pal Dave and I started nerding-out about old movie poster artwork. After looking through a few of my poster books I had on hand, Dave got on the web and brought the work on Richard Amsel to my attention.
I had seen quite a few posters by Amsel over the years, but never knew exactly which artist had created them. Dave brought up Amsel doing the poster for Raiders of the Lost Arc, which I always assumed was created by Drew Struzan. Diving into Amsel’s work last night was amazing, aside from him being a brilliant illustrator he has a sharp sense of design and use of white space. The girth of his portfolio blew me away.
It really is bittersweet to look through the works of Richard Amsel, Drew Struzan and Bob Peak. These guys were the masters of the movie poster medium which, and I quote Dave, “is a dying form of art.”
Those posters are pretty great. Maybe you’ve head of em, but the Alamo Drafthouse has been commissioning an ongoing series of awesome modern movie posters.
Amsel and Peak are my favs, but yes, all three are masters of a dying art.
Great posters. I have been collecting vintage movie posters for 15 years and always enjoyed posters designed by Amsel and Struzan. To me though the best movie posters ever made were from the 1920’s and 30’s. That was truly the golden age of movie posters. the main reason being that movie posters were the only real way to visually advertise the film. Most people would decide what movies to see by looking at the poster art. There was no television back then, just radio, newspaper, and posters. Enjoy collecting, its a great hobby!
Best
Ralph DeLuca
Madison, NJ