Lost Star Wars Artwork To Be Featured At Orlando Exhibition
Original Works By Conceptual Artist Ralph McQuarrie Found In Berkeley Basement
The above drawing, which has been scanned to digital for archive preservation, is a concept drawing for the now infamous Star Wars villain, Darth Vader. When George Lucas was first developing his space epic into workable movie pitch, he turned to an artist named Ralph McQuarrie to help turn his ideas into vivid artwork that could be used to help illustrate the concept of Star Wars to studio execs. McQuarrie eventually became renowned for his vivid artwork, much of which has been analyzed by Star Wars fanatics, film scholars, and art students. But some of McQuarrie’s earliest Star Wars drawings were nearly lost, until serendipity intervened in the form of a broken furnace.
In 2007, a 400-page retrospective called “The Art of Ralph McQuarrie” was published featuring production paintings, matte paintings, and sketches, which were all photographed, scanned to digital, inventoried, and preserved by Lucasfilm. A few months later, McQuarrie began having problems with the furnace in his Berkeley, CA home. According to Steve Sansweet, Lucasfilm’s director of content management and head of fan relations, McQuarrie had to move an old bookshelf unit in order to let the repairman access his furnace, and in doing so he found “an old box on a shelf that was filled with treasures.”
Lucasfilm has incorporated these newly discovered artworks into a masterworks exhibit of McQuarrie’s art that will be shown at Star Wars Celebration V, the official Lucasfilm event celebrating all things Star Wars, which will be held August 12th- 15th in Orlando, FL. The exhibit will feature 100 original pieces from McQuarrie’s personal collection, including many of the “lost” thumbnail sketches and pencil drawings that were created in the process of producing the now iconic production paintings that helped Lucas pitch Star Wars to 20th Century Fox. Also included will be McQuarrie’s design work on other characters, spaceships, creatures, and weapons.
To view more Star Wars artworks that have been scanned to digital, click here to view the website for Star Wars Celebration V’s art show.
