THERE COULD BE ONLY ONE: RIP, TONY STELLA, MOVIE ILLUSTRATOR…

In an age where many movie posters have become a composite of photo stills and Photoshop, many bemoan the era where they were truly works of art, specifically drawn and painted from publicity material and the kind of thing you’d like to hang on a wall rather than just a temporary placement at the multiplex.

We’ve lost several key illustrators in recent years. Drew Struzman passed away last year and now comes news of the loss of Tony Stella. Though he rose to fame later, in the age of the internet – a medium which he said helped spread his work quicker than some of the artists that came before – he definitely reflected the earlier quality of movie posters and spoke openly about his dislike for the more modern movie trends. He created literally hundreds of paintings for (or paying tribute to) movies and much of his work can be found on posters for wider, international releases and rereleases, especially those in the East. He found fans in both the professional and fan communities in which he circulated.

In interviews, Stella talked a lot about his influences, but that he liked to change up his style – so that big adventure movie imagery would feel different from comedies etc. He admired eastern cinema after his father showed him Seven Samurai at an early age. He told the Beneficial Shock website that: “…film-wise I was just very attracted by Japanese storytelling which is very different to Western storytelling… there’s more a sense of hierarchy with the characters with underlings and under-bosses that has more nuance…”

One of his most famous, recent posters was for the wider rollout of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, though his work also appeared on the likes of very different movies like Death of a Unicorn.

There’s a selection of some of his most notable entries below, including one for the release of the original Highlander… and you can more at https://www.tony-stella.com