Shining a Spotlight on Art Directors
Words by Rosemarie Knopka, Archivist
Art Directors Guild
This year marks the 21st Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards, which took place on Saturday, Feb. 11 at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood and Highland. The Art Directors Guild presents awards for outstanding production design in television, feature films, music videos, and commercials. Honorary awards are given for Hall of Fame, Lifetime Achievement, and Cinematic Imagery.
As the archivist at the Art Directors Guild, I help to supply research on Hall of Fame inductees and Lifetime Achievement award winners in order to provide background for the award presentations, and I preserve materials generated by the awards, including images, interviews, video, and research materials.
In 2016, the Hall of Fame selections shed light on four pioneering women: production designer Carmen Dillon, production and costume designer Patricia Norris, production designer and illustrator Dorothea Holt Redmond, and art director and set designer Dianne Wager.
It’s fascinating to research the careers of Hall of Fame inductees. While they were leaders in their fields, finding information from a variety of sources can be challenging due to a lack of documentation and scholarship.
Research sources that were especially valuable in this search included the membership files and the archives at the Art Directors Guild, photographs shared by the Wager family, and materials at the Margaret Herrick Library, ArtCenter College of Design Archives, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. A few favorite images and sources from the research are highlighted below.
Art director and set designer Dianne Wager at work with a friend in an undated photograph.
Wager’s credits include Annie (1982) and Pleasantville (1998), among many other titles for film and television. Courtesy of the Wager family.
A concept illustration of the Butler house interior for Gone With The Wind by production designer and illustrator Dorothea Holt Redmond.
Redmond’s beautiful illustrations for Gone With The Wind are featured in the book The Making of Gone With The Wind by Steve Wilson. This illustration is housed in the Harry Ransom Center’s David O. Selznick collection.
Dorothea Redmond talking with three ArtCenter students regarding a student's illustration, circa 1960.
Courtesy of ArtCenter College of Design.
A film still from Blue Velvet (1986). Patricia Norris was the production designer for the film, one of many collaborations with director David Lynch.
Norris worked steadily from the early 1970s and her last project was 12 Years a Slave (2013), for which she received a nomination for an Academy Award for Costume Design. Image from Moments That Made the Movies by David Thomson (2013).
The Encyclopedia of British Film by Brian McFarlane was a great source of biographical information on Carmen Dillon.
Dillon was the first female art director in the British film industry and she won an Oscar for set decoration for the film Hamlet (1948).
Rosemarie Knopka is the Archivist at the Art Directors Guild. Established in 2012, the Art Directors Guild Archives preserves and makes available a wide variety of materials for production design research as well as materials that document the accomplishments of Guild members and the history of the ADG. Research and materials are provided for ADG programs and events, art departments, scholarship, books, and exhibits. The 2016 publication The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop by Karen Maness and Richard Isackes was a collaborative project with the Art Directors Guild Archives.
Related Articles
More selected projects
Sign-up to be a member of LAAC
Connect With Us
Site by Grace Danico