Even if the name John Alvin doesn’t immediately ring a bell, his art surely will. In posters for more than 135 films, he captured some of cinema’s most defining images: E.T.’s glowing fingertip, The Lion King‘s majestic sunrise, and Star Trek‘s blazing space-scape. His were deeply evocative works that distilled and conveyed the mood and magic of the movies. “I try to do art that makes the promise,” he’s said, “‘if you see this, you will feel this way.’”
When Alvin died in 2008, he left behind a vast archive of original movie posters, as well as sketches, illustrations, and other material that bear out his meticulous creative process. It’s a trove that spans the 1970s through ’90s, and numbers more than 1,000 pieces. Now, after stewarding the collection for years, the artist’s widow and long-time collaborator Andrea Alvin is ready to part with it.
“I’ve shepherded the collection this far, and it’s time to let it go,” she told me over a video call. “It’s time for it to go out into the world, and hopefully people will get to see it.”
John Alvin, Willow theatrical poster (1988). Courtesy of the John Alvin estate.
The Alvin estate is currently seeking a buyer—whether an individual or an institution—who will acquire the entire collection, rather than breaking it up into pieces. Keeping the archive intact might be challenging, but key to preserving Alvin’s legacy as a whole, the collection’s manager Leslie Combemale told me. In her words, it maintains “a story from the beginning to the end.”
“There are so many generations who connect with the stories that John worked on and, by extension, the art representing it,” she said over a video call. “This is the whole story—from the first concept to the key art—that people had on their walls when they were growing up.”
John Alvin. Photo courtesy of the John Alvin estate.
Who Was John Alvin?
Alvin was born in 1948 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, where he grew up in thrall to the film advertisements in newspapers. Small wonder, then, that when he graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles in 1971, he gravitated toward the silver screen. His first official movie art campaign as a freelance artist was for Mel Brooks’s 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles, for which Alvin turned in a rollicking visual capped with his dynamic hand-lettering.
The poster did the trick, landing Alvin on the industry’s radar. He would go on to design posters for Young Frankenstein (1974) and Brooks’s other productions such as High Anxiety (1977). “I didn’t look for work for about 15 years after that,” he said in 2007. “It came to me.”
John Alvin, E.T. poster concept (1982). Courtesy of the John Alvin estate.
In 1982 came the poster that would cement Alvin’s standing: the key art for Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The image foregrounded the alien’s fingertip meeting that of a child’s—a composition inspired by Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, with John and Andrea’s young daughter serving as the model for the human hand.
Just as alluring was Alvin’s subsequent work for Disney during its Renaissance period, when he created posters for animated features such as The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994). They bore out Alvin’s command of light and drama, his subjects often illuminated by a diffuse, almost transcendent, glow.
John Alvin, Aladdin poster alternative finish (1992). Courtesy of the John Alvin estate.
That effect quickly earned its own moniker, “Alvin-izing.” Its roots lay in film, of course, Andrea Alvin revealed.
“He loved Steven Spielberg movies. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the light that comes in under the door [when the aliens arrive]—that influenced him,” she explained. “He called it heavy light. He said, ‘I want to create that.’ And he did.”
Alvin would also leave his mark on a slew of other iconic films—from horror movies Gremlins (1984) and Arachnophobia (1990) to science fiction outings such as Blade Runner (1982) and Star Trek VI (1991). He developed key artwork for major franchises including Batman, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter, and anniversary posters for Star Wars, too. His visuals, a Disney advertising executive once noted, had no small impact on the box office.
John Alvin, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame poster concept (1996). Courtesy of the John Alvin estate.
“There was a reason why The Lion King did the numbers that it did. There was a reason why Hunchback [of Notre Dame] became a big success,” John Sabel told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. “It’s because of the images that were produced, and a lot of those were John Alvin’s paintings.”
A Fading Form Meets Collector Demand
But as the century turned, so did film art. The rise of digital tools edged out the handcrafted work of artists like Alvin, who brought a distinctly human eye and touch to the job.
His and Andrea’s creative approach was a deeply involved one, encompassing ideating, sketching, consultations with the studio, and compositing. Alvin often hand-lettered the movie’s title; sometimes the couple developed the poster’s copy. Due to printing limitations of the day, Alvin had to create the final paintings in sizes close to the posters; “a lot of them were big,” Andrea Alvin noted.
John Alvin, Star Wars Concert poster concept (ca. 1979). Courtesy of the John Alvin estate.
“Alvin-izing” itself was an intricate airbrushing process. While airbrushing usually called for friskets, or masking material, Alvin insisted on using as few of these cut-outs as possible. “He would basically paint with the airbrush almost like a watercolor—layer upon layer of very delicate color,” Andrea Alvin explained. “That’s how he got those colors that drove printers crazy.”
Alvin’s archive, then, represents a monument to a vanishing craft, in an era when the design of movie posters is increasingly governed by algorithms, foreign market demands, or tired formulae. The artist’s clear love for and engagement with his subject—he, too, was a film fan—shows up even in his in-process work.
John Alvin, Batman poster composite with graphite drawings and painting (1988). Courtesy of the John Alvin estate.
Putting a price tag on such a trove, which has been catalogued and preserved according to museum standards, is no easy task. Combemale said the estate is “aiming for the low eight-figures” for the whole archive, based on its importance and Alvin’s past sales.
According to the Artnet Price Database, the artist’s auction record stands at $394,000 for the original E.T. illustration, which sold at Heritage Auctions in 2016; his other works, for Blade Runner, Star Wars, and Willow, regularly realize five-figures.
The collection sale is also happening at a time when film memorabilia and fantasy art are enjoying a resurgence on the market. Just last year saw the value of Frank Frazetta paintings skyrocket to a high of $13.5 million, while Tom Jung’s original artwork for the Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) poster raked in a dizzying $3.8 million. The significance of illustrative art is also being acknowledged in a big way at the upcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (the Star Wars filmmaker owns a number of Alvin’s pieces).
Andrea and John Alvin. Photo courtesy of the John Alvin estate.
Letting the collection go closes a chapter, Andrea Alvin noted, but marks a new one for the artist’s legacy. And the stage, it seems, is already set.
“I would like to see the collection go out into the world in a way that allows for a larger embrace of the history and process of film art and illustration, which really is coming into its own,” said Combemale, “to put it out there in a place where there’s a celebration of it.”
“It’s being recognized,” Andrea Alvin added. “It’s finding its moment now.”