The first thing a visitor notices when walking into Bob Tanenbaum’s studio on the second floor of his Calabasas condo is the brushes. Of course, he is one of the most successful film art artists of all time, but the vast number of brushes he uses to convey his ideas from his brain to his canvas is overwhelming.
Tanenbaum has created art for more than 250 motion pictures over a career spanning half a century, which may be unequalled productivity in the annals of film art.
Tanenbaum says he has been retained for so many commissions because he is good at portraits and brings an adaptable style to his work. His poster art spans a number of styles, from Norman Rockwell to cartoon-like, and all executed with an underpinning of his own style that film marketing executives call, “the Tanenbaum look.”
Just a few of the films for which he had created the poster artwork are: Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), High Anxiety (1977), Battlestar Galactica (1978), The Cheap Detective (1978), A Christmas Story (1983), Red Headed Stranger (1986), Outrageous Fortune (1987), and Kansas City (1996). In 1986, he did 10 Disney films.
Of course, when you’ve done so many films, some of them are bound to be overlooked for Oscar mention, such as: 5 Fingers of Death (1973), Scum of the Earth (1974), Death Weekend (1976), Kinky Coaches and the Pom-Pom Pussycats (1981), and Dance of the Dwarfs (1983).
He is known for his perfectionism: “I won’t let a piece of artwork out of my studio until it’s the best I can do.” One of the biggest artistic challenges he faces is the contractual obligations attached to films, usually related to the size and position of the film’s stars. For example, it is not only whose name is on top, but the type size of each star’s name, whose face and body are larger in a montage, and who is on the left…or the right.
He considers himself an artist, not an illustrator. He takes his art seriously…but not himself.
Tanenbaum doesn’t restrict himself to motion pictures; he has created advertising artwork for automobiles, beer companies, clothing manufacturers, and numerous other categories.
A stickler for accuracy, Tanenbaum almost always uses live models to pose for his movie paintings. He typically starts with stills from the film (“I almost never see the actual movies”), but for the poster to imbue interest and action, he has to photograph models. “You’d never find the head on the body doing what you wanted. So I go through the still books and find headshots. Then I hire models, get them in the right clothes, and pose them. The trick is to make sure the model’s head is turned in exactly the same angle as the photo. The head and neck are two crucial parts of any likeness,” he says.
“When I can’t find a model, I use myself.” Speaking of his rendering of Paul Newman for his artwork for The Color of Money (1986), “Paul Newman has his face on my body,” he says, “that’s why he won the Academy Award as Best Actor,” he kids with a grin.
With just a slightly sly look, Tanenbaum admits he’s “good with cleavages and long legs,” and indeed he is.
“Movie posters basically have a single function—to tell a story,” says Tanenbaum. “People look at the poster and if it or the movie ad excites them, they will go see the film. Two weeks after that, it is word of mouth. But it is the posters that brought the people in. They have to make you want to know what was going to happen in the movie.”
One of his greatest compliments came when Michael Wayne, John Wayne’s son, told Tanenbaum that he had captured his father’s look better than any other artist; “That’s real praise,” Tanenbaum says. Other personalities whose portraits he has painted are Muhammad Ali, Karen Carpenter, Tom Selleck, and Frank Sinatra.
Today, computer illustration, Photoshopping and retouched photography have largely replaced movie art…another example of art being substituted by technology.
At 88, Robert Tanenbaum is still a working artist, fulfilling commissions and painting portraits. His latest venture is to participate in the production of a new book, The Movie Poster Art of Robert Tanenbaum, an annotated collection of more than 200 of his motion picture illustrations.
He obviously knows how to use all of those brushes.
Martin Cooper, President of Cooper Communications, supervised public relations for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for 10 years; held executive positions with Disney and Universal Studios; and served as Chairman of the Board of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Cooper is a Fernando Award Honoree and Past Chairman of VICA. An award-winning author, he has written four books, two of them on the San Fernando Valley. Cooper is currently researching his next book, the history of motion pictures in the San Fernando Valley.
