The Original Movie Posters Blog - Art of the Movies

From its infancy, film has attracted visual artists who like to push the boundaries of their art form.

Whilst Duchamp, Dali and Warhol set out to become film-makers (with varying levels of success), one fell in to it by accident, and, almost won an Oscar...

When looking through our Catalogue of original vintage and contemporary movie posters, you will come across posters described as ‘advance’ or ‘teaser’ movie posters.

In this blog post we take a look at what those terms mean…

One of America's greatest inventors, Thomas Alva Edison was born in Ohio on the 11th February 1847. Largely home and self-schooled, the future direction of the young Edison’s life was set by a potentially tragic event.

In this entry to the Original Movie Posters Blog, we look at how that shaped his life and eventually influenced the movie posters we see today...

This week sees a landmark exhibition at the newly renovated Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. “Coming Soon: Film Posters from the Dwight M. Cleveland Collection” takes over 200 posters from the 3000 held in the museum’s ’Cleveland Collection’ to present the largest ever museum exhibition of classic movie posters.

In this week's blog post we take a little look at the fascinating background to this amazing collection...

Every now and then we come across a poster that stops us dead in our tracks. It’s happened twice recently, first with an unofficial poster for “Captain America : The First Avenger”, and then secondly, with the official French poster for the fantastic sci-fi thriller “Looper”.

Imagine our surprise to find that they are by the same artist, the phenomenally talented Richard Davies. We tracked Richard down in deepest Carmarthenshire and were thrilled when he agreed to have a chat with us.

First and foremost, it is the aesthetic appeal of original movie posters that appeals to us, but we also keep an eye on the market, particularly when some rarer posters are up for auction.

The rarest posters are generally from the first half of the Twentieth Century, where only one copy may now remain. From the second half, James Bond posters are frequently the higher prices at auction.

So it was at the June 2019 ‘Cinema Poster Live Auction’ at the UK’s ‘Prop Store’, where James Bond posters stole the show. Here are the top five James Bond results…

With the current trend for 'secret' extra scenes, I imagine we have all sat through the credits to a recent movie. 

Ever seen “Movie Poster Artist” in there? No, neither have we, and, that is a real shame.

So, we were excited to see that this year's San Diego Comic-Con (the most significant annual comic and pop culture festival in the world and celebrating its 50th year) includes a special panel entitled “Masters of the Illustrated Film Poster”.

We reached out to Paul Shipper of Paul Shipper Studio to find out more…

Ever walked past a movie poster and thought "that film looks good" even though you haven't seen the trailer? We all have. Movie posters are powerful.

At their best, they capture the magic and energy of an entire feature film in an image roughly 27 inches across by 40 inches long.

They can make, or break, a film. Yet, only rarely do the extremely talented artists behind them get a mention. There aren't many movie poster superstars.

But, there are a few, and, Drew Struzan is one of them...

In a career spanning forty-eight years, he was personally nominated for thirteen Academy Award Oscars, winning one. His films were nominated an incredible twenty-seven times, winning nine.

Including a downloadable timeline, in this post we take a look at the thirteen feature films and three short films directed by the incredible Stanley Kubrick.

Here in the UK, The Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum holds over 10,000 posters, including the national collection. The British Film Institute also holds around 15,000 movie / film posters, covering the early 1900s to the present day.

But, as far as we are aware, there isn't a UK museum singularly dedicated to posters. The same is true of the United States, but, that is about to change, thanks to the team behind Poster House, due to open in New York on 20th June 2019.

We reached out to Poster House’s curator, Angelina Lippert, to find out more…

Here in the UK, it is Father’s Day on Sunday 16th June. What do you get the man who thinks he has everything?

How about a guaranteed original movie poster!

With our certificate of authentication and attention to detail, a poster from Art of the Movies is the perfect gift.

Here is some inspiration from us...

Movie posters are produced around the world and the myriad of different names and sizes can be confusing.

We thought it now time to sum these up in a series of handy downloadable Infographics. Our second Infographic covers the posters of the United Kingdom...