ACADEMY LIBRARY AND ALAMO DRAFTHOUSETO ARCHIVE ART MOVIE POSTERS FROM MONDO
Beverly Hills, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library is partnering with the Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse theater chain to archive the company’s growing collection of original film posters designed by contemporary graphic artists. The first group of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Mondo posters arriving at the Herrick will include the latest print, a poster for the classic horror film “Frankenstein” (1931), created by Drew Struzan. The Alamo Drafthouse began producing limited-edition silkscreen posters in 2003. Mondo, the company’s art boutique, now produces more than 120 posters annually, and through it prominent artists such as Martin Ansin, Shepard Fairey, Olly Moss, Tyler Stout and Ken Taylor are commissioned to create new art for classic films, as well as alternative posters for contemporary movies such as “Inglourious Basterds,” “True Grit” and “Thor.”“We are always seeking out the unusual, and the Mondo collection certainly fits the bill,” said the Academy’s graphic arts librarian, Anne Coco. “We are looking forward to working with the Alamo Drafthouse to ensure that its contribution to the art of movie posters will be around for future generations to appreciate.”This ongoing gift from the Alamo Drafthouse will be housed along with the Herrick’s existing collection of more than 38,000 movie posters. The posters in the library’s collection are stored in climate-controlled vaults, and are scanned and entered into the library’s online catalog, where they can be viewed by the public.“We're extremely grateful to the Academy for its interest in archiving Mondo's poster collection,” said Mondo Creative Director Justin Ishmael. “We're fans of movie art, first and foremost, and to have our artists' work archived alongside some of the classics of movie poster art is an incredible honor."The Margaret Herrick Library poster collection includes a wide range of works created by noted graphic artists, such as the Stenberg brothers’ constructivist poster for “Man with a Movie Camera” and Wiktor Gorka’s arresting poster for the Polish release of “Cabaret.” The library also holds all of the film posters designed by Saul Bass, including his groundbreaking key art for “The Man with the Golden Arm.”Crazy, right?! So, if you read through that entire thing, you probably saw a name in there that hasn't been associated with us before. DREW STRUZAN. I've kinda teased in the past about this by tweeting his business card and all of that, but it's real. We're doing a poster with him. Here it is....
2. Last year at San Diego Comic Con, I bought a book with a ton of Drew's artwork and him talking about each piece. This book, to be exact. I read the entire thing the night I got it and one of the big things that he talked about was that most of the movies he wanted to do posters for came out before he was born and he would love to take a shot at them. So, I ended up getting in touch with him and letting him know that we could make that happen. A few months later, Kevin Tong and I went to his house and brought him some posters to show what we could do and he was in. Drew has never had a screenprinted poster done before and he was interested to see what we could do, so here we are. We're working with Drew Struzan. The production on this thing is going to be OUTRAGEOUS, so when we get closer to releasing, I'll have more news and pics.3. With the announcement of the Academy wanting to archive our work, we decided that it was time to build a site showing off everything we've done. So, here it is.... WWW.MONDOARCHIVE.COMThere has never been a complete record of everything we've done, but this is it. Let me say this now....this is not complete. In the early days, the internet didn't cover our poster releases, so there are some "lost" Mondo posters out there and we're still unearthing them. It will be fun to get those up so always check back because there will be more added.That's it! Exciting, exciting stuff and the week is just beginning. Can you believe that we'll actually have more news and releases this week, too?-Justin
