Original Drew Struzan Artwork From Indiana Jones, The Witches of Eastwick and More Heads to Propstore Auction

A collection of original artwork by legendary movie poster artist Drew Struzan is heading to auction as part of Propstore’s Summer Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction, taking place August 26 through August 29 in Los Angeles. The sale will include more than 1,700 lots of film and television props, costumes, production material, autographed pieces and other entertainment memorabilia, with a combined pre-sale estimate of $10 million.

Struzan’s career spanned more than four decades and included artwork for more than 150 films, including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, Blade Runner, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Shawshank Redemption. The works in the upcoming sale give collectors a chance to own original pieces connected to several different points in his career, ranging from finished campaign art to alternate concepts that were never used theatrically.

The highest-estimated Struzan piece in the group is his original hand-painted “Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates” book cover artwork. Created for Martin Caidin’s 1993 novel, the mixed-media piece is signed and dated “92′ by Struzan and was later reproduced as a double-page spread in Oeuvre, a retrospective book devoted to his career. Propstore has placed a pre-sale estimate of $40,000 to $80,000 on the artwork.

Another major lot is Struzan’s signed and hand-painted key advertisement artwork for The Witches of Eastwick. Estimated at $12,000 to $24,000, the piece depicts Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon positioned above Jack Nicholson’s head. According to Propstore, the design was likely conceived as a theatrical poster but ultimately saw its primary use in newspaper and magazine advertising for the film.

Collectors will also have a chance to bid on Struzan’s final advance movie poster painting for Harry and the Hendersons. Estimated at $8,000 to $16,000, the hand-painted artwork shows Bigfoot’s hands gripping a splintered wall with the Seattle skyline in the background. The image was used for the film’s U.S. one-sheet poster campaign and was later reproduced for its 4K Blu-ray release.

A signed Waterworld comprehensive artwork carries the same $8,000 to $16,000 estimate. The mixed-media composition was created during the film’s poster campaign but was not used for the theatrical release, making it an alternate vision of the movie’s advertising that collectors would not have seen as the finished theatrical poster.

The Struzan offerings also include a signed and hand-drawn poster composition for How to Train Your Dragon, estimated at $4,000 to $8,000. Propstore says Struzan came out of retirement to create individual poster artworks celebrating each movie in the trilogy around the 2019 release of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

While the Struzan artwork is one of the featured collections in the sale, the overall auction has an even higher-profile centerpiece. Propstore says the headline lot is the only complete stop-motion animation gorilla puppet known to survive from the 1949 film Mighty Joe Young. The puppet, which has remained in private collections for more than 70 years, is estimated at $1 million to $3 million and will make its public auction debut on August 26.

The four-day auction begins August 26 with in-room bidding at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, along with online, absentee and telephone bidding. The remaining three days will be conducted through live online, absentee and telephone bidding.