Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2018 - 9

The USITT exhibit of Oliver Smith's artworks is a rare oppor-

tunity for professional theatre designers and students to see selections from the
archive of a master scenographer. In the pantheon of 20th century American
scenic designers, Oliver Smith is unmatched for his breadth of work in theatre,
dance, and opera. During his legendary career, he was honored with eight Tony
Awards, including two in the same year (1961) for Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Camelot) and Best Scenic Design of a Play (Becket). Smith's Broadway set
designs began in the era when settings were primarily painted backdrops and
spanned the period that featured more unit settings. While a consummate artist
in the "painterly" tradition, Smith had a keen sense of stage space and anticipated the contemporary emphasis on architectural design.
This new exhibit of selected artworks by Oliver Smith was made possible through the generosity of Rosaria
Sinisi (who owns Smith's intellectual
property rights and supervises revivals
of his works onstage, as well as his personal papers and photo archive) and Dan
Carter, who approached us with the idea
for an exhibit after seeing a 2012 article
by Patrick M. Finelli in Performing Arts
Resources about the Oliver Smith Collection at the Library of Congress, Music Division. Carter and Finelli agreed to serve
as co-curators and send the exhibit on a
short tour before the giclée prints take
up permanent residence at Pennsylvania
State University, where Smith studied architecture as an undergraduate.
The team met in the lobby lounge
of the Park Central Hotel in New York
City in February 2017 to select drafting
and color images that represented the
range and diversity of Smith's designs.
Sinisi had carefully maintained, augmented, catalogued, and stored more
than 10,000 pieces of Smith's artwork
and, prior to their conveyance to the Library of Congress, had digitized about
1,200 of these images to facilitate use by
scholars. These she presented to the curators in a thumbnail catalog for review.
She also brought two portfolios of giclée

prints, and a selection of Diazo prints
made from the original pencil on vellum
technical drawings, as well. Fortunately,
it was a weekday morning and the bar
was empty and had plenty of table space
available to roll out and examine the
breathtaking artworks.
Sinisi offered to make giclée prints
on watercolor paper from high-quality
scans of the original artwork. The term
giclée was coined by Jack Duganne,

who used this adaptation of the French
gicleur (inkjet nozzle) which sounded
more linguistically appropriate for fine-art
works. Sinisi printed the renderings for
this exhibit at about the same size as the
originals, with the backdrop elevations
slightly smaller. The texture of the watercolor paper is virtually identical to the
surface on which Smith painted, and the
high resolution of the giclée prints makes
them close to indistinguishable from the

"ONCE, IN ANSWERING A QUESTIONNAIRE
CONCERNING THE WORKING METHODS OF
THEATRE PEOPLE, I WAS ASKED WHAT OLIVER
SMITH DID WHILE PREPARING FOR A SHOW. I
REPLIED, 'TWO OTHERS,' AND ADDED 'AND A
DELIGHTFUL SIX-DAY TRIP.' WHY DO PEOPLE
PUT UP WITH ALL THIS? BECAUSE HE'S JUST
THAT GOOD. THEY WANT HIM. PRESENT OR
ABSENT, HIS SCENERY IS DELIVERED ON TIME,
AND IT WORKS. HIS BEST SCENERY MAKES
THEATRE HISTORY." - AGNES DE MILLE
WINTER 2018

THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2018