“Now Playing,” just published book

Now Playing
Hand-Painted Poster Art From the 1910s through the 1950s

by Anthony Slide, with Jane Burman Powell and Lori Goldman Berthelsen

Published in cooperation with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Now Playing features a rare collection of hand-painted poster art by Batiste Madalena, Edwin Isaac Checketts, O.M. Wise and Edward Augustus Armstrong, as well as many other now-collectible poster artists.

Now Playing tells the highly visual story of movie posters that were actually hand-painted by artists who were commissioned by local theater owners in individual communities throughout the United States. Never having actually seen the films they were promoting, these commercial artists were free to improvise, interpret and customize, which always resulted in dramatically different renderings for the same film. Nuances of color and line, dramatic lettering, and a fabulous array of famous faces and films all add to this landmark coffee-table book, destined to be the definitive work on these one-of-a-kind treasures of motion picture history.

Author Anthony Slide, supported by the research of Jane Burman Powell and Lori Goldman Berthelsen, tells a story that has never been told, a story that adds a new dimension to the history of motion picture posters, all illustrated with artwork lost to the public eye until now.