Ralph McQuarrie

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Ralph McQuarrie (2008)

Ralph McQuarrie (born June 13, 1929 in Gary , Indiana , † March 3, 2012 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American illustrator in the field of concept art .

Life

Born in Indiana during the depression of the 1920s , McQuarrie came from a family of artists. His grandfather owned a small publishing house in town, and both he and Ralph's mother were painters. At the age of 10, Ralph took art classes. After completing his regular studies, he went to Boeing in Seattle and, the youngest of a group of around 50 artists, illustrated the latest designs for aircraft and spaceships. After joining Boeing, he worked on a number of different projects, including the artistic interpretation of the moon mission for CBS . With this assignment, he caught the attention of the entertainment industry. Soon he was painting backgrounds for cartoons and making drawings for film posters.

In 1975 George Lucas hired him to work on the production drawings for Star Wars . At the time, the film was still in the development phase. McQuarrie's drawings, in combination with Lucas' script, were able to convince those responsible at 20th Century Fox to finance the production. McQuarrie's concepts and drafts were also indispensable in creating the production design and costumes for the film. A talented concept artist with a vivid imagination, Ralph McQuarrie was one of the main creative drivers behind the first three Star Wars films. Some sources assume that McQuarrie was massively inspired by concrete templates at the direction of Lucas. McQuarrie made a brief cameo as General McQuarrie in The Empire Strikes Back .

In addition to many conceptual designs, McQuarrie created matte paintings for The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi . His other projects include Close Encounters of the Third Kind , Battlestar Galactica and ET - The Extra-Terrestrial . Most recently, McQuarrie designed covers for science fiction books and occasionally realized concepts and drafts for films. He made nine new Star Wars images for The Illustrated Star Wars Universe , which combines his old and new work. McQuarrie received an Oscar for working on the film Cocoon . In 1997 McQuarrie worked (alongside, among others, George Lucas , Irvin Kershner and Rick McCallum ) on Laurent Bouzereau's book The Annotated Screenplays ( ISBN 978-0345409812 ), which presented the development of the first three Star Wars films.

McQuarrie died at his Berkeley home on March 3, 2012, at the age of 82, of a complication of his Parkinson's disease .

Filmography

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. z. B. Michael Heilemann: George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It's Okay , binarybonsai.com, 18. September 2010 .
  2. ↑ Star Wars artist Ralph McQuarrie dies aged 82 , BBC News . March 4, 2012. 
personal data
SURNAME McQuarrie, Ralph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American concept designer and futurist
DATE OF BIRTH June 13, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Gary , Indiana , USA
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 2012
Place of death Los Angeles , California, USA