George Gibson hired artist and former Marine Jim Dobson to join the MGM scenic studio during its latter years. Dobson developed his painting skill by studying and replicating Duncan Spencer’s backdrops from MGM’s inventory. Dobson worked for various studios, painting backgrounds for The Birds (1963) with Coast Backings in the More »
The Ferrell brothers claimed they were not known as singular artists but as a duo. As one twin was right-handed and the other left-handed, their shared joke was that they could start at opposite ends of a backing and meet up perfectly in the middle. The Ferrells worked for almost More »
Los Angeles native Joseph Francuz knew he wanted to be an artist as a child and happily succeeded. Joe graduated from Otis Art Institute in June 1975 and was working as a scenic artist by September. One year later, Joe was painting scenic backgrounds at JC Backings. Joe apprenticed to More »
Born in a small village west of Prague in 1926, Jaroslav Gebr studied at the Academy of Art in Prague from 1941 to 1943. Gebr was classmates with Emil Kosa Jr, who would become a critical art director at 20th Century Fox. Gebr escaped communist-occupied Czechoslovakia, fleeing to Munich. Eventually, More »
George Gibson, a Scottish immigrant and itinerant scenic artist, began working as a day hire in MGM’s special effects department in 1934. He would become the scenic art supervisor by 1938, bringing to MGM the stylistic influence of nineteenth-century British realist painters. His education at Edinburgh College of Art, apprenticeship More »
Clem Hall was a British artist of exceptional skill, hired and trained to be a scenic artist by George Gibson at MGM after meeting through the California Watercolor Society. Admired by his peers as one of the best scenic artists of his day, his MGM credits include An American in More »
California-born artist David Addison Helms painted at MGM with George Gibson for 45 years and was a member of the prestigious Painters and Sculptors of Los Angeles. Counted among MGM’s skymen, he painted memorable skies for The Wizard of Oz (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Ben-Hur (1959). Helms More »
F. Wayne Hill was part of the core team of artists working at MGM. He is remembered as a colorist—assigned the critical task of setting the color for the look of the backdrop—and credited as the colorist for Forbidden Planet (1956). He also led the drawing and layout of the More »