CAPTURING A FILM’S ESSENCE

Some contemporary film posters are just fancy advertisements. Jay Shaw’s film posters are works of art. Shaw is one of several artists who create original film posters for Mondo; the Austin, Texas-based company produces lush, limited-edition, screen-printed posters of movies new and classic — several of which are featured in Christie’s online-only sale of vintage film posters through June 24. In Shaw’s designs, showcasing the action hero’s muscles or the starlet’s face isn’t important. He prefers distilling a film into a single sharp, essential, artistic image. Christie’s spoke with Shaw about his life and his creative process, and why he won’t be illustrating children’s movies any time soon. 

How do you choose what to work on?

When it is with a company like Mondo, they are assigned for the most part. They’ll get a license and they’ll look through their roster of artists and say “Oh, Jay might be good for this.” I think I tend to say “pick me” for the weird, obscure stuff because that’s the stuff I like the most. You’re probably never going to see a Captain America poster from me. But you’ll definitely see some strange stuff from the 70s. And that translates over to a lot of the more commercial one-sheet works [I do]. A lot of studios will pick me for a film that’s a little more out of left field.

Read the interview in full here.

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Shaw's design for the dystopian sci-fi classic, Robocop; image courtesy of Mondo. Several Mondo designs are among the vintage film posters on sale in Christie's online only auction.