Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/610353
16 P E R S P E C T I V E | N OV E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 news After much design work by Fred and others, and under consultation with the Art Directors Council, led by Council Chair Marcia Hinds and Tom Wilkins, two final versions were presented to the ADG membership to select the winner. This final design (pictured on page 14) will be manufactured by R.S. Owens & Company, Chicago, IL. The process of finding a manufacturer was difficult but eventually, a true like-minded artistic partner was found to trust with this new trophy. The new trophy for Excellence in Production Design will be called The Cinemagundi, named after the organization founded May 1,1924, "…in a room at the rear of a Sunset Boulevard bistro, [where] some sixty-three fashionably dressed artisans, led by William Cameron Menzies and Anton Grot, signed a document establishing the Cinemagundi Club, the principal purpose of which was to let the world at large know the extent of their contributions." [Jane Barnwell, Architects of the Screen, 2004] PERSPECTIVE editor Michael Baugh writes [PERSPECTIVE, October/November 2007]: "It was at its heart a social club and continued until 1937. The clubhouse, on lower Beachwood Drive still stands. In 1929, the Art Directors League was formed as a true craft guild to improve wages and working conditions for Art Directors. The Depression undercut the League almost as soon as it was formed and Art Directors, happy to have any kind of steady work in those difficult times, abandoned all thought of collective action. "After the passage of the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act) in 1935, the Art Directors decided they must form their own organization before another union attempted to organize them. Fifty-nine Art Directors from all the major studios, met on May 6, 1937, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and founded the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors, the organization that still exists today, seventy-eight years and three name changes later, as the Art Directors Guild." So we look forward to celebrating the 20th Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards this January 31 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, where this new trophy will be presented for the first time. Thank you to all of our members who submitted their ideas for this design competition. Above is the Cinemagundi Club's original charter, still hanging in the ADG offices.The organization's name was derived from the Salmagundi Club, founded in New York City in 1871, one of the oldest art organizations in the United States. www.Salmagundi.org