Born in Chicago, Art Rider received his early formal training at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and a scenic art apprenticeship at Sosman & Landis, adopting the color theory practices of artist Fred Scott. As a student, he painted as a scenic artist for the Chicago Lyric Opera before More »
Smart started as a teenage “paint boy” and was a scenic artist at Sosman & Landis; he worked there from approximately 1908 to 1921. In the 1920s, he joined four other former Sosman & Landis employees to establish Service Studios in Chicago. He moved to Detroit to work on Norman More »
Noted as one of his generation’s most sought-after scenic artists, Duncan Spencer has a thirty-eight-year career, distinguished by his mastery of drawing, perspective, color theory, and value. Gifted as an artist from childhood but behind in school after a two-year delay in education due to tuberculosis, Spencer dropped out of More »
In 1952, after graduating from high school, Ron Strang became an apprentice at Warner Bros. Drafted into the Korean War, he served as an illustrator in the Eighth Army. Upon his return to Los Angeles in 1956, he rejoined Warner Bros. He refined his craft, working alongside veteran scenic artists More »
Verne Strang started his career as a dayworker during the Depression, bouncing around from one film studio to another while pursuing plein air landscape painting. Having met while working on a scenic theatrical production, Bill McConnell brought Verne Strang to Warner Bros. to help paint backdrops for The Petrified Forest More »
Tepker worked at MGM from 1949 to 1977, taking over the scenic art department as scenic art supervisor after George Gibson’s retirement. Tepker, trained by Gibson, was a consummate production artist. He was exceptional in creating the illusion of aerial perspective and explaining this technique to his assistants. The color More »