Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2018 - 11

gouache and watercolor of the Brooklyn
Bridge painted in the 1940s. Smith also
enjoyed painting the ships that docked
near the Brooklyn Bridge and sold some
of these works to their captains.
Smith had been fascinated with theatre and hotel ground plans since he was
a child, obtaining the plans to the Paris
Opera, the Metropolitan, and Radio City
Music hall, along with the deck plans of
ocean liners. His cousin Paul Bowles
suggested that since he could draw and
liked the theatre, he should paint for the
stage. His first effort was for a Massine
ballet Saratoga (1941) at Ballet Russe
de Monte Carlo; that production was a
flop, but his design attracted attention.
Then he designed sets for a series of
one acts; his work was panned by the
critic George Jean Nathan. Yet he persisted, and his iconic design for Agnes
De Mille's Rodeo (1942) followed by successes working with Jerome Robbins
and Leonard Bernstein designing On the
Town and Fancy Free in 1944 put him in
the top tier of scenic designers. His success enabled him to purchase a stately
home in Brooklyn Heights, immortalized
in Truman Capote's short story A House
on the Heights, where he lived for the
rest of his life.
Depending upon the decade of their
execution, Smith's artworks may include
watercolor, gouache, and Dr. Martin's dye.
It was the dye that gave the intense punch
of color. One of the hazards of Dr. Martin's
is that it is susceptible to fading in sunlight; some of these pieces were exposed
to light in both scene shops and while
hanging on the walls at American Ballet
Theatre. Thus, some of the artworks may
require digital color correction to accurately display their original appearance.
During his illustrious career, Smith
created scenic designs for many iconic
American musicals including My Fair
Lady,  Hello, Dolly!,  Oklahoma,  Brigadoon, Sound of Music, and more than 60
others. He was co-producer with Lucia
Chase for 40 years at the American Ballet Theater, where he collaborated with
Agnes de Mille (Rodeo), and Jerome Robbins (Fancy Free). This exhibit features
the iconic Corral Scene from Rodeo
(1942), with uniquely styled horsetail
clouds that are Smith's signature flourish and appear in renderings of scenes in
the Midwest. Dance companies still perform the piece around the world, always

with Oliver Smith's decor.
Smith was art director for the motion picture Oklahoma!, as well as three
films for MGM (The Band Wagon, Guys
and Dolls, and Porgy and Bess) and was
a consultant on the Oscar-nominated
feature film, The Turning Point. When
he was offered a lucrative position to
stay in Hollywood, he had to make a difficult choice: "I was intrigued, and at the
same time homesick for New York," he
said. "Every time I returned to New York
I would feel like I was getting sprung. I
served my sentence. Now I had to make
a very important decision-whether to
stay here and do a new musical called
My Fair Lady, or go back to Hollywood
and be a successful producer and have a
big swimming pool" (MacKay 1982, 65).
That decision propelled him into the era
of big Broadway musicals.
Smith designed many productions
for opera companies including the Metropolitan Opera (La Traviata) and Sarah
Caldwell's Boston Opera (Don Giovanni  and  Falstaff). The Levee scene from
New York City Opera's Naughty Marietta (1978) in this exhibit is a beautiful

example. Smith was also committed to
bringing avant-garde work to Broadway,
where he produced the first American
version of Jean-Paul Sartre's  No Exit,
as well as Jane Bowles's In the Summer
House (which he also designed).
Oliver Smith's ability to deliver firstrate designs on a tight schedule made
him a favorite of Broadway producers for
decades. His work blended a distinctly
American painting style with the grace
of his moving scenery, creating designs
that earned accolades around the world.
Smith dedicated a portion of his later
career to the education of the next generation of set designers, teaching in the
MFA program at New York University's
Tisch School of the Arts for 22 years
(Sinisi).

Prolific Career

Researchers and curators usually have
little or no  control over the initial, and
most important,  decisions of what may
be included in material that goes to an
institution. Rather,  institutions simply
assess what they are offered and accept
or decline. In many cases, the artist's

WINTER 2018

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THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

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