Chinatown
Artist
Richard Amsel
United States, 1947 - 1985
Date1974
Dimensions33 x 23 3/4 in. (83.8 x 60.3 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.9102
DescriptionThis poster promotes the West German release of the now-classic 1974 film Chinatown, a film noir set in 1930s Los Angeles that exposes the city’s financial and political corruption. It was released the same year in Spain, France, and Britain. Richard Amsel’s career as an illustrator took off when he was still a student at the Philadelphia College of Art, where he won a competition to design the poster for the big-budget Barbra Streisand film, Hello Dolly, of 1969. He went on to design numerous album covers and magazine covers, in addition to posters for some of the most popular films of the 1970s and ‘80s, among them The Sting, Murder on the Orient Express, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Amsel’s short career of some 15 years ended with his death from AIDS in 1985. This particular design is characteristic of his bold, figurative style that evokes the nostalgia of a past era while remaining identifiably modern. On View
Not on view
