Roger Kastel, an American artist and author of cinema posters and book covers, including the iconic and unforgettable poster of The shark by Steven Spielberg, which has gone down in cinema history. Kastel, who also created the beautiful poster for the second chapter of the Star Wars saga, The empire strikes againwas born in 1931 in White Plains, New York, and graduated from the Art Students League of New York, beginning his career as a freelance illustrator in the 1950s.
The poster of The shark
In 1975 he was commissioned to create the cover for the paperback edition of the novel Jaws by Peter Benchley. The illustration, which depicted the silhouette of a shark shot vertically in the act of swimming towards the surface of the water to attack an unsuspecting swimmer, was so popular with Universal Studios that it was used as the poster for Steven Spielberg’s film based on the same book.
A LONG CAREER
As far as the posters of The shark And The Empire strikes again are certainly his best known and most famous works, Kastel has obtained numerous awards for his illustrations during a very long career that began at just 15 years old. He leaves behind his wife Grace, daughter Beth and son Matthew, as well as three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. The family has asked anyone who would like to pay tribute to his passing to leave a donation to The Artist’s Fellowship, an organization that assists professional artists in difficulty.
Source-tg24.sky.it