Ralph McQuarrie was one of the best, most important and most influential film concept designers and visual development artists in the industry.
He is best known for his groundbreaking work on the original three Star Wars films, but worked on numerous other projects.
McQuarrie died yesterday, March 3, 2012, at the age of 82.
The official Art of Ralph McQuarrie website, though informative in some respects, is unfortunately not forthcoming when it actually comes to art, the galleries consisting essentially of thumbnails without larger images. Despite my best hopes, it has been that way for some time, so I don’t know if there is even an intention to provide real images in the future.
Fortunately, for the moment at least, the StarWars.com site has a nice tribute to McQuarrie, with a slideshow of images large enough to do his wonderful ability justice.
There is a nice tribute here from illustrator Greg Newbold.
See also my previous post on Ralph McQuarrie.
[Addendum: another terrific and large set of images of McQuarrie’s work on Concept Ships (Via Daring Fireball)]
[Via Tor.com]