Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/859699
16 P E R S P E C T I V E | S E P T E M B E R / O C TO B E R 2 0 1 7 news SCENIC ART: PAINTING THROUGH TIME by Lara Holtappel & Dunja Suikkanen, Archives Interns, Art Directors Guild On Saturday, June 17, the Art Directors Guild's Gallery 800 in North Hollywood hosted the opening night for its summer exhibition Scenic Art: Painting Through Time. The exhibit features a comprehensive collection of personal artwork from renowned Scenic Artists, as well as photographs depicting their everyday working lives in Scenic Departments in film, television, theater and opera. Through archival materials and generous contributions from Art Directors Guild members and families of the artists, the exhibit aims to display the diverse skills and techniques mastered by Scenic Artists and honor their craftmanship. The opening reception also provided an opportunity to celebrate the recently published The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop by Karen L. Maness and Richard M. Isackes, which beautifully details the largely unknown history of Scenic Artists and their substantial contributions to the film industry. The idea for the scenic exhibit came to Art Directors Guild Archivist Rosemarie Knopka as she and Karen Maness were working on research for the book. It became clear that there was a great variety in the techniques, tools and surfaces employed by Scenic Artists, as well as the productions that have made use of painted backdrops. Intricate paintings on muslin were used to achieve some of the most memorable scenes in films such as The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music and North by Northwest. With the exhibition, Rosemarie, Karen and Gallery 800 curator Abra Brayman wished to introduce the craft of Scenic Art to a wider audience, and to acknowledge the artists who spent their careers creating these painted surfaces largely without credit. In an era of sophisticated visual effects, hand-painted