By Judy Carmack Bross
“I’ve circumnavigated the world hunting down rare film art. My hunt has led me into unusual situations, from tracking down a mysterious collector in Tokyo so secretive he’d changed his identity, to showing up with a sledgehammer and a crowbar at the home of a former theater owner that had been slated for renovation, knowing he had insulated his walls with old film posters.”—Chicagoan Dwight Cleveland whose movie poster collection will be sold at auction by Heritage March 27-28.
Dwight Cleveland in London for recent Heritage Preview
Chicagoan Dwight Cleveland just returned this week from Heritage auction previews in London and New York for the March 27-28 auction in Dallas of his collection of some of cinema’s rarest, most beautiful and celebrated artwork, from The Blue Angel to King Kong and Casablanca to modern-day masterpieces including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Apocalypse Now. Heritage will host a Chicago preview March 10-14 at 222 West Hubbard.
Called a collector who single-handedly defines an entire market, Cleveland told us:
“The best posters in my mind are those that reduce the entire essence of a movie into a single, vivid sheet. My collection represents 125 years of film history and transcends global differences and even literacy through the deceptively simple universal language of the world’s most refined film art.”
Heritage writes that this single-owner auction “proves that his acumen, enthusiasm and strategy of collecting cinema’s greatest movie posters — from Golden-Age Hollywood classics — such as Casablanca and King Kong, to the esoterica of international interpretations of familiar favorites like Cabaret and Barbarella, to one-of-a-kind lobby cards dating back to the early 1900s — has landed him at the top of the collector and philanthropic hierarchy. Cleveland’s storied collection is distinguished by a key factor: He collects his materials based on the seduction and impact of their imagery, artistry and history rather than the more usual practice of building a collection around, say, an era, a genre or a movie star.”
Cleveland’s practice of collecting works for their aesthetic power has created the most visually stunning and diverse collection of movie posters and lobby cards ever realized, Heritage experts say. “Connoisseurs worldwide recognize these materials as artworks in and of themselves, separate but significant pieces of cinema’s glorious history. Movies don’t reach audiences in a vacuum. The sirens that pull in the crowds start with images that offer a tantalizing taste of what’s in store.”
Zach Pogemiller, Heritage’s Associate Director of Movie Posters, told us:
“Movie posters are more than just advertisements—they are time capsules of cinematic history, capturing the essence of a film in a single, striking image. For collectors, these posters are windows into the magic of the movies, evoking memories of first screenings, beloved characters, and the artistry that brings stories to life. A great movie poster isn’t just a piece of paper; it’s a portal to a world of imagination, nostalgia, and passion. That’s why collectors treasure them—not just as artworks, but as personal connections to the films that shaped their lives.”
Pieces of Cleveland’s famous collection — now 50 years in the making — have made their way into the permanent holdings of the Library of Congress, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, major universities in Wyoming, Texas, Illinois, New Hampshire and more, and into museums and institutions across the country. Rob Stone, the professional film archivist now retired and formerly the Library of Congress’ longtime Moving Image Curator, as well as a curator of UCLA’s Film and Television Archive, has worked with Cleveland for years, and stresses the collector’s generous philanthropy in the field as well as his gracious custodial role in holding such important material. “His collection is both deep and wide. Dwight is also a film historian; he knows everything about a poster — who made it, where it comes from and why — and his impact on collecting is two-fold: He understands and shares a poster not just as an artwork but in case of history, what it attaches to. That’s rare.”
Cleveland established the Frederica Sagor Maas Fellowship at Columbia University which supports historical research on women behind the camera, in honor of the youngest female story editor in Hollywood history. He was named an Associate Visual Cultural Curator at Dartmouth after completing an Artificial Intelligence project with them in 2022.
“The selection of Cleveland’s collection offered by Heritage in March represents the best of the best,” says Joe Maddalena, Heritage’s Executive Vice President. “It’s a robust cross-section of Cleveland’s keenest interests, including his most remarkable domestic and international posters, and era-launching lobby cards that would have never seen the light of day were it not for Cleveland’s tireless pursuit.”
Taste-makers of moving-image culture have honored Cleveland. His magnificent 2019 Assouline book, Cinema on Paper, dedicated to Cleveland’s sweeping collection, is introduced by forwards penned by cinema authorities Ben Mankiewicz and Steven Heller, and that same year his collection was the subject of a major museum exhibition at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach that drew a record number of visitors. “The best posters are enduring, legendary visual communications,” writes Heller. “They are now psycho-cultural signifiers that provoke a range of existential and mnemonic responses — a heavy weight to put on a poster, but if it weren’t true, why else would we care about them? We care about them because they are a large part of the cinema gestalt.”
Emblematic of Cleveland’s early rare finds is Building a Building from 1933 featuring Mickey Mouse.
“A huge percentage of advertising posters and materials for early films are gone,” says Cleveland. “They were often stored in movie theater basements and attics. Those spaces were prone to flooding, to fires. Much of what I collected I never knew existed, no one knew, until they surfaced.”
His quests have taken him from attics in Havana to trailer parks in Des Moines, all of the auction houses of Europe, to flea markets in Auckland where he discovered a world class collection of horror movies and anywhere a treasure might lurk. When we first interviewed Cleveland in 2016 about his movie poster passion he told us:
“Barely a day has gone by in the last 40 years that I haven’t pursued a lead of some sort. I’ve been the one at the flea market with my flashlight at 5:30 a.m., searching auction sites worldwide in antiques ad collectable journals, building rapport with pickers, elbowing my way at conventions to be first at dealer’s tables, researching theatre owners from the 1940s in all 50 states, tearing down walls to discover posters used as insulation, and basically hunting stuff down like big game.”
For more information about the Cleveland Auction visit: ha.com
