The amazing Art of the Modern Movie Poster, a 500-page treasure-chest of postwar film poster design published by Chronicle Books and the good folks at Posteritati, deservedly devotes a whole section to the unique posters of Peter Strausfeld. Strausfeld was a German woodcut artist who, for 35 years, until his death in 1980, produced posters exclusively for the Academy Cinema in London. This 1977 poster for The Lacemaker (see larger view here) would have been one of his last, but over the years he produced designs for nearly every major arthouse director, particularly Academy favorites Miklos Jancso, Satyajit Ray and Ingmar Bergman.
Though original Strausfelds, which were printed in runs of 3 to 500, run from $100 to $1000, the British Film Institute has recently started selling cheaper reproduction prints of a number of Strausfeld's designs in its online store. You can even have the designs printed on a mouse pad, a t-shirt or a coffee mug, just in case you need a little Bergman with your morning coffee.
