Cinema posters can be incredibly inspiring especially for artists and graphic designers looking for intriguing ideas for their works or even for advertising campaigns.
It is not so rare to find auctions of film posters and movie stills and, if you're a collector or you're just looking for inspirations and you're willing to invest, you should check out Sotheby's current online original poster, artwork and lobby cards auction.
Online bidding opens this week (on 23rd August; the auction will close on 5th September), but in the meantime you can give a look at the various lots and learn more about the graphic designers and artists behind the posters.
As you may guess there's a bit of everything for all sorts of tastes: there are plenty of posters for Walt Disney films, such as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Dumbo.
There are quite a few valuable pieces in the Disney section, including a 1932 Mickey Mouse poster (starting bid: £12,000, but estimated to reach up to £20,000), and original artwork for Pinocchio (1940) and Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (1937). Artworks for the latter are particularly highly prized as these pieces resurfaced only recently as they were previously owned by an English lady (starting bid for one of the Snow White artworks: £2,400, but estimated to reach up to £6,000).
For musical lovers there's a red and yellow striped poster of iconic Top Hat (1935) with stylised renditions of dance partners Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (starting bid: £10,000; estimated to reach £20,000).
The offer is wide when it comes to posters from '40s and '50s films including Gilda, Sunset Boulevard, It's a Wonderful Life, A Matter of Life and Death and Miracle on 34th Street.
Audrey Hepburn fans can choose between Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany or My Fair Lady, while people interested in costume design can rediscover Marilyn Monroe in a sexy satin gown by Travilla in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).
There are fantasy (The Wizard of Oz), surf-themed (Big Wednesday) and Western posters (For a Few Dollars More) and there are some authentic gems in the sci-fi section (that also includes the Star Wars and Star Trek sagas), such as an Art Deco poster for Metropolis (1927) and a 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) poster designed for the film's Cinerama release (only shown in a relatively small number of cinemas that were able to screen this format; as a result this poster was printed in smaller quantities compared to the main release posters).
A camp poster for Batman's 1966 film based on the television series is an explosion of colours; graphically speaking the most beautiful posters remain the ads for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo with Saul Bass's classic spiral design.
But there are interesting stories behind other posters: there is for example the Italian poster for House of Wax (1953), directed by Andre DeToth and starring Vincent Price.
A remake of the 1933 film Mystery of the Wax Museum, this was the first colour 3D full-length film from a major American studio; the film poster on auction at Sotheby's was designed by Luigi Martinati who emphasised in it the fact that this was a 3D movie.
The most expensive item on auction is a French poster of King Kong (1933), estimated to reach £50,000, but an unusual investment would be the impressive poster for Federico Fellini's City of Women by the late comics artist and illustrator Andrea Pazienza (1956-1988), estimated to reach around £3,000.
Can't afford anything? You can still enjoy looking at some of the auction highlights at Sotheby's London-based galleries in New Bond Street (until 2nd September) or you may want to look at the various lots on Sotheby's website to keep in mind how much some of these posters are worth in case you stumble upon some of them at a second-hand market or online.
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