They say that art is in the eye of the beholder, but one thing’s for sure in the world of outdoor advertising, movies and TV shows certainly like to pay homage to famous paintings in their marketing campaigns. For this month’s Daily Billboard’s ‘3 of a Kind’ feature, here are three examples that illustrate the point.

First up is this recent billboard artwork for DC’s Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) which emulated Italian artist Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” for the new female-led comic book movie. This extra-dimensional billboard mimicking the original painting from the 1480s, with Margot Robbie’s anarchic ‘Harley Quinn’ as the goddess Venus, was photographed along L.A.’s Riverside Drive at the end of January 2020.

The second example is for the TV sitcom Fresh Off the Boat starring Constance Wu and Randall Park, and inspired by the life of chef and food personality Eddie Huangand his Taiwanese-American immigrant family. This billboard for the comedy series launch channels American artist Grant Wood’s 1930 American Gothic painting, and was snapped along West Hollywood’s Sunset Strip mid-January, 2015.

The third billboard paying homage to an iconic piece of art is for the short-lived comedy series Angel From Hell starring Jane Lynch. On the key art the actress is depicted as one of the cherubs (with accompanying hip flask) from the bottom of Italian artist Raphael Sanzio’s The Sistine Madonna oil painting commissioned in 1512. This mischievous billboard was spied along Westwood Boulevard at the beginning of October 2015.

For more examples of billboards spoofing art, you can also check out this Ricky Gervais Show from 2012 parodying The Creation of Adam, this Vikings billboard emulating The Last Supper from 2016 and these Dominion billboards  paying homage to Archangel Michael from 2014, to name just a few more.

If you liked this article, come back next month when we’ll be looking at the use of childhood photos in billboard campaigns to help them stand out.

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