Roger Kastel

Roger Kastel (June 11, 1931 – November 8, 2023) was an American artist, known for creating the posters for the films Jaws (1975) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

Personal life
Roger Kastel was born in White Plains, New York on June 11, 1931. He later lived in Milford, Massachusetts, occasionally commuting to Manhattan to attend classes at the Art Students League of New York. Kastel resided in Clove Valley in Dutchess County, New York for 47 years, where in a 200-year old barn which he had converted into a studio, created both the Jaws and Empire Strikes Back illustrations. He was married to his wife, Grace Kastel, from 1957 until his death in 2023 and had two children, Beth Krebs and Matthew Kastel, who is the Stadium Manager for Oriole Park at Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles and Past President of the Stadium Managers Association. Roger Kastel died of kidney and heart failure in Worcester, Massachusetts, on November 8, 2023, at the age of 92.

Career
Kastel’s first professional job came at age 15, when he was hired to do a comic book to teach industrial workers how to do their trade. He was a student at the Art Students League of New York while in high school, and then again after serving in the Navy during the Korean War. While in school, he studied under: Sidney E. Dickinson, Edwin Dickinson, Robert Beverly Hale, and Frank Reilly.

In the 1960s Kastel did illustrations for western paperbacks and Argosy Magazine before signing an exclusive contract with Bantam Books in 1967. It was here Kastel had his greatest success, painting the iconic paperback book cover for Jaws, which was later used as the movie poster for the 1974 Spielberg film.

Kastel was also known for doing movie posters such as Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), The Great Train Robbery (1978), and his well-regarded movie poster for The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

In addition, he illustrated several best-selling books, including several by Jackie Collins, and Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), and The Great Santini (1976).