Interview with 80’s O-Pee-Chee Artist Who Works in Sony Pictures Classics Artwork Department

What does a sports trading card company and an almost two decade old institution in indie and foreign film distribution have in common? You might not know him by name, but you might recognize some of his artwork.

We got an exclusive interview with one Pierson D’avril, a French painter who haphazardly traded in a career for painting open fields, fruit baskets and the family pets for iconic imagery of North American sports figure icons and Hollywood’s leading men and women. The artist behind hockey player Brett Hull’s rookie sports card is the same person who recently transformed the poster one sheet for The Damned United and made Michael Sheen look a couple of years younger.

How did you get your start?
“I used to go to Central Park to earn a couple of bucks painting mostly portraits during the tourist season, and I was approached by a pin-striped suited man from Canada who liked my work. He mentioned he was looking for an artist who could help update player stats on trading cards. Back in the day, the only photographers in the NHL were based out of East Rutherford, New Jersey and Boston, Mass…so whenever we’d get an end of season trade and the photags didn’t have any recent pictures in their new uniform, so O-Pee-Chee would give me a call. A classic example of this can be found when Brett Hull was traded from Calgary to the St.Louis Blues.”

What were some of the perks of the business? 
“Plenty of bubble gum, hockey tickets, Wayne Gretzky rookie cards that I’ve stored away in a safety deposit box, and every year I’d receive sweaters from every NHL team to help with the portraits.” 

How did you go from cards to Hollywood posters?
“The 90’s were tough. When the trading card business became a smarter investment than the stock market, the card companies became sophisticated and added more photographers to their roster. As quick as you could open a wax pack of seven cards, I was out of a job. So I responded to an ad in the paper in the Summer of 91, asking for someone to do touch-ups. I thought it was going to be for fashion magazines, but I ended up at SPC.”

What do you say towards your critics who despise your art-form?
There was no predecessors before me when I started at O-Pee-Chee, and our target market was nine year-olds. When I moved to Sony Pictures Classics, the mandate didn’t change much…the big bosses told me not to worry about my style as I was dealing with their demo – mostly senile seniors with cateracts.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this is my April Fool‘s piece!

For the record: I’m a big fan of Michael Barker and Tom Bernard’s work and the SPC label, I just wish they’d think outside of the box when it comes to the poster work design for some of their campaigns: here is a great batch of poster marketing which could easily replace some recent eyesore examples.