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Renato Casaro

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Renato Casaro
Casaro in 2016
Born(1935-10-26)26 October 1935
Treviso, Italy
Died30 September 2025(2025-09-30) (aged 89)
Treviso, Italy
Known for
Awards

Renato Casaro (Italian: [reˈnaːto kaˈzaːro]; 26 October 1935 – 30 September 2025) was an Italian artist known for his film posters. He painted over 2,000 posters[1] which included A Fistful of Dollars, Solaris, My Name Is Nobody, Flash Gordon (Argentina version), Conan the Barbarian, Octopussy, Rambo: First Blood Part II (international version), Red Sonja, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Dances With Wolves.[2][3][4][5][6] His work has gone mostly uncredited.[7]

Casaro is considered one of the most important, influential and innovative Italian film poster artists.[8] He made hundreds of works dedicated to the cinema, becoming very popular abroad.[9] He is best known for his fantasy posters.[10]

Life and career

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Casaro was born in Treviso on 26 October 1935.[6][11] Casaro attended a school known for its art program and had a teacher who encouraged him to pursue painting. His early interest in posters reportedly began with movie advertisements. He would go every day to the cinema to see if they were changing the posters, and if they were he would ask if he could take them home where he would try to reproduce them.[12]

In 1953, at age 18, Casaro found a job as a staff artist at Studio Favalli, a famous design and art studio of Rome's film industry. In Rome, at age 21, he opened his own art studio.[5]

Dino De Laurentiis hired Casaro in 1965 to design the poster images for the film The Bible: In the Beginning.... After that, Casaro worked on many films with De Laurentiis, like Flash Gordon, Dune, and Conan the Barbarian.[6] At the same time Casaro continued his business, producing posters for different directors like Sergio Leone, Claude Lelouch, Francis Ford Coppola, Bernardo Bertolucci, Luc Besson, Franco Zeffirelli, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.[13][14]

Casaro stopped designing posters in 1998 as film studios began to adopt digital tools.[3] In 2019, Casaro was called by Quentin Tarantino to realize some "old school illustrated Western posters" ("Uccidimi Subito Ringo, disse il Gringo" aka "Kill Me Now Ringo, Said The Gringo", and "Nebraska Jim") for Italian films starring Rick Dalton, the character Leonardo DiCaprio plays in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.[3][4]

Casaro died from bronchopneumonia in Treviso on 30 September 2025, at the age of 89.[6][15] Upon his death, he was acknowledged as a highly influential poster designer,[8] including a tribute from Arnold Schwarzenegger on Twitter.[16]

Film posters

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Published collections

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  • Renato Casaro: Africa. ISBN 978-3-7888-1412-0.
  • Renato Casaro: Movie Art. ISBN 3-9806443-0-8.
  • Renato Casaro: Painted Movies. ISBN 3-9801878-1-0.
  • African Memories. ISBN 978-3-87314-477-4.
  • Renato Casaro: The Art of Movie Painting. ISBN 978-88-98843-50-3.

Awards

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References

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  1. ^ Livesay, Chris (5 December 2022). "An 86-year-old movie poster artist's unlikely third act". CBS News. CBS Mornings. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  2. ^ a b Webster, Garrick (March 2016). "The Golden Age of Fantasy Film Posters". ImagineFX. Future plc. p. 47.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i "A Fistful of Dollars to Rambo: the late Renato Casaro's movie posters – in pictures". The Guardian. 30 September 2025. Archived from the original on 30 September 2025. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Moore, Sam (14 September 2022). "The Michelangelo of the movie poster: Renato Casaro picks his best film art". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 September 2022. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lang, Robert (30 September 2025). "Renato Casaro Dies: The Italian Maestro Behind Posters For 'Fistful Of Dollars', 'Conan The Barbarian' & Thousands More Was 89". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Media Corporation. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Barnes, Mike (30 September 2025). "Renato Casaro, Famed Italian Designer of Movie Posters, Dies at 89". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  7. ^ a b c d Povoledo, Elisabetta (22 October 2021). "Rambo, Romeo, Rome: His Posters Capture Films' Essential Moments". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 October 2021. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  8. ^ a b Redazione (30 September 2025). "Farewell to Renato Casaro, among the most influential poster designers in film history". Finestre sull' Arte. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  9. ^ Hans-Martin Heider (2003). Renato Casaro - from Hollywood to Africa. Heider, 2003, p. 175. ISBN 9783873143890.
  10. ^ Zimerman, Tal (October 2011). "Poster Mondo! - Italy". Rue Morgue. No. 116. Marrs Media Inc. pp. 32–33. ISSN 1481-1103.
  11. ^ Eugenio Manzato (1992). L'Italia al cinema: manifesti dalla Raccolta Salce 1911-1961 (in Italian). Marsilio, 1992. ISBN 9788831756129.
  12. ^ "An interview with Renato Casaro". filmonpaper.com. Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  13. ^ "Renato Casaro, Film Painter". Il Cinema Ritrovato. Archived from the original on 8 July 2015. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  14. ^ "Famed film poster designer Renato Casaro dies". Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata. 30 September 2025. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  15. ^ "Addio a Renato Casaro, autore delle locandine che hanno fatto la storia del cinema". tg24.sky.it (in Italian). Sky News Italy. 30 September 2025. Retrieved 1 October 2025.
  16. ^ Arnold Schwarzenegger [@Schwarzenegger] (30 September 2025). "Hollywood lost a legend" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "Addio a Renato Casaro, le sue locandine di film più indimenticabili. FOTO". Sky TG24 (in Italian). Sky Italia. 30 September 2025. Retrieved 4 October 2025.
  18. ^ Marchese Ragona, Fabio (2017). "Storie di locandine – Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo". Ciak (in Italian). Vol. 10. p. 44. ISSN 1121-1784.
  19. ^ "Lezione di cinema: 'Renato Casaro, l'ultimo pittore del cinema'" [Film lesson: 'Renato Casaro, the last painter of cinema'] (in Italian). Il Cinema Ritrovato. 29 June 2015. Archived from the original on 25 January 2026. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
  20. ^ Santoni, Simona (11 October 2024). "Renato Casaro, due mostre sull'ultimo uomo che dipine il cinema" [Renato Casaro, two exhibitions on the last man to paint cinema]. Panorama (in Italian). ISSN 0553-1098. Archived from the original on 25 January 2026. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
  21. ^ a b Rossi, Marco (2021). "Renato Casaro, The Ultimate Movie Billboard Designer - Treviso, Rome, Hollywood" (PDF). Musei Civici Treviso. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2025.
  22. ^ "Quadrophenia (1979)". Internet Movie Poster Awards.
  23. ^ "Tenebrae / quad / UK". Film on Paper. 14 January 2020.
  24. ^ "Never Say Never Again (1983)". Internet Movie Poster Awards.
  25. ^ "Flesh & Blood (1985)". Internet Movie Poster Awards.
  26. ^ Curti, Roberto (2 June 2022). "9. Murder Most Foul". Italian Giallo in Film and Television: A Critical History. McFarland & Company. p. 358. ISBN 9781476682488.
  27. ^ Mears, Hayden (2 August 2022). "Renato Casaro - RED SONJA". Starburst. Archived from the original on 12 August 2022.
  28. ^ Shannon, Eddie (6 March 2014). "An interview with Renato Casaro". Film on Paper. Archived from the original on 29 June 2014. Retrieved 5 October 2025.
  29. ^ Lancia, Enrico (1998). "CIAK D'ORO". I premi del cinema (in Italian). Gremese [it]. p. 278. ISBN 9788877422217. 1991 - Miglior manifesto - Il tè nel deserto - disegno di Renato Casaro [1991 - Best poster - The Sheltering Sky - design by Renato Casaro]
  30. ^ "Filmplakat: Der mit dem Wolf tanzt (1990)". Filmposter-Archiv (in German). Archived from the original on 3 April 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2025. Jupiter-Filmpreis für das beste Filmplakat 1992
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Interviews

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