Short answers, pulled from the story.
Carol Titelman edited the first volume, published in 1979 by Ballantine Books. The book included concept art, storyboards, publicity shots, and George Lucas's screenplay in its Revised Fourth Draft form, dated the 15th of January 1976.
The first volume featured concept paintings by Ralph McQuarrie, sketches by Joe Johnston, set design drawings by John Barry, costume sketches by John Mollo, storyboards by Alex Tavoularis, and photographs by Bob Seidemann and John Jay. Film poster artists including Drew Struzan, the Hildebrandt Brothers, and Tom Jung also appear in pages 138 to 175.
Lucasfilm first mounted The Art of Star Wars exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 1995. From 2000 to 2001 the exhibition expanded internationally, with appearances at the Barbican Art Gallery in London and the Helsinki City Art Museum.
The first books were published by Ballantine Books, a subsidiary of Random House, with later editions appearing under the DelRey and LucasBooks imprints. Later titles in the series were published by Harry N. Abrams.
The 2015 book features early concept art for the character Kylo Ren and also discloses preliminary sketches showing a proposed appearance of Anakin Skywalker as a malevolent Force ghost. Concept artists Iain McCaig and Craig Alzmann are among those whose work appears in the volume.
Revised editions of the first three books were published in 1997, with new material added to reflect the additional visual effects used in the Special Edition theatrical releases. From 1994, reprinted editions also adopted episode-number titles to match the naming convention the films introduced after 1981.