Wednesday 5 October 2011

Drew Struzan: Oeuvre

Just over a year ago, Titan Books published The Art Of Drew Struzan, a beautiful book full of posters by the man who made every movie for which he designed a poster at least 119% better.

As it turns out The Art Of Drew Struzan was merely the underwear section of the Kays catalogue compared to the full-on hardcore poster porn that is Oeuvre, 300 pages of wipe-clean beauty with minimal but relevant text (written by Struzan's wife, Dylan) and over 250 single, double and triple page spreads of his greatest works. Yes, some of them are also in the previous book, but if you bought that you'll still want to own Oeuvre. Here are five reasons why:

All Struzan's greatest movie posters are in here, and some of them fold out, like this Back To The Future spread that literally made my pants explode.

Ouevre also features plenty of Struzan's more obscure film work, such as these posters for 1983 jockey biopic (they hadn't yet coined the now-familiar contraction 'bijockip') Champions and Ed Harris-starring WWII caper Code Name: Emerald (me neither).

Struzan's Star Wars work extends into the Expanded Universe, and much of that is in here too. This one is for The Courtship Of Princess Leia, the synopsis of which I've just read on Wikipedia and have yet to stop laughing.

I don't know about you but I had no idea Drew Struzan had designed two Princess Diana collectors' plates. The one on the left is called "Princess Of Hope" and the one on the right is called "Princess Who Just Audibly Broke Wind In Public". I made one of those up.

At the back of the book is a collection of Struzan's personal artwork, which largely consists of nudes and children. Be advised, therefore, that reading this section on the bus may get you arrested.

Flippant piffle aside, Oeuvre is an astonishing collection and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's published by Titan Books on October 14th at the ludicrously good value RRP of £29.99, but you can get it for less than nineteen quid at Amazon, meaning it would actually cost you not to buy it.

2 comments :

  1. I confess to having actually read the Courtship of Princess Leia. I've just read the synopsis on Wiki, and realised I had mercifully blocked out all memory of the plot.

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  2. Today the best artists in the world work in advertising because that is where the top dollar is paid. Drew was drawn to draw for the movies. In his day Michaelangelo painted for the Pope because the Pope could demand the best artists in the world. If Michaelangelo was alive today, The Incredible Suit would be gazing at a coffe table book of his movie posters.

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