British Production Designer Anthony (Tony) Masters, nominated for an Academy Award® for the film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and pioneer Production Designer Ben Carré, best known for his work on the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera and The Wizard of Oz, will be inducted into the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800) Hall of Fame at the 23rd Annual Art Directors Guild’s Excellence in Production Design Awards. The 2019 Awards, themed “Landscape of the Imagination,” will be held Saturday, February 2, 2019 at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. The announcement was made today by President Nelson Coates ADG and Awards Producer Scott Moses ADG.
In making the announcement, Coates said, “We are honored to celebrate legendary artists Tony Masters and Ben Carré for their arresting visual imagery as they are inducted into the ADG Hall of Fame. Both were gifted artists who have inspired us for decades through their talents, imaginations, and enormous contributions to the art of narrative design in motion pictures.”
Anthony Masters (1919 -1990) was a British Production Designer during his illustrious career spanning 45 years. He received an Oscar® nomination for Best Art Direction in 1968 for his amazing work in 2001: A Space Odyssey. His other best-known films include Dune, Lawrence of Arabia, Papillon, Tai-Pan, The Clan of the Cave Bear and The Deep. He has two dozen credits as Art Director, including such notable films as The Heroes of Telemark, The Cracksman, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Faces in the Dark, The Story of Esther Costello and the Oscar®-winning short The Bespoke Overcoat. He died in France, the father of three sons with his wife of 33 years, actress Heather Sears. His sons Giles Masters ADG (The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, Women in Gold) and Dominic Masters (Wonder Woman, Murder on the Orient Express) followed in their father’s illustrious steps and son Adam is a television and film editor in the UK.
French-born Production Designer Ben Carré (1883-1978) is best known for the catacomb set designs for The Phantom of the Opera, the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz, the home of the Smith family in Meet Me in St. Louis and sets for The Jazz Singer. A classically-trained artist, Carré studied at the Atelier Amable in Paris. He began his professional career as a scene painter for the Paris Opera and the Comédie-Francaise, later joining Pathé-Gaumont as a set designer on five feature films. Carré entered the U.S. in 1912 as a Production Designer at Eclair/Peerless, renowned at the time for having one of the most state-of-the-art studio facilities on the East Coast. He was under contract at MGM (1924-26), Warner Brothers (1926-27), Fox (1928-35) and, again, MGM (1939-44). During his time at the studios, he designed sets for Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings and worked on Noah’s Ark, The Iron Mask and Dante’s Inferno. He took a permanent job in MGM’s scenic art department where he stayed for thirty years painting backgrounds for many of MGM’s classic films including Marie Antoinette, An American in Paris, Meet Me in St. Louis, Julius Caesar, North by Northwest, Singing in the Rain, and The Wizard of Oz. After retiring in 1965 at the age of 82, Carré remained in Los Angeles with his wife Anne and was a prodigious painter and exhibitor of watercolors featuring Los Angeles cityscapes. He died in 1978.
Last year’s ADG Hall of Fame inductees, only posthumously, were Production Designers Sir Ken Adam and Tyrus Wong. The complete list of inductees can be found at www.adg.org.
Producer of this year’s ADG Awards (#ADGawards) is Production Designer Scott Moses ADG. Online nomination voting opens December 6, 2018 and ends January 4, 2019 and nominees are announced on January 7, 2019. Final online balloting starts January 8th and ends January 31, 2019 and winners are announced at the dinner ceremony on Saturday, February 2, 2019. ADG Awards are open only to productions when made within the U.S. by producer’s signatory to the IATSE agreement. Foreign entries are acceptable without restrictions.
The ADG Awards is proud to be sponsored by Design Icon Level: Shutterstock, Sweetwater/NEP Live Events; Design Innovator Level: Dazian Fabrics; Platinum Level: Aztek Wallcovering; Media Sponsors: The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and SHOOTonline.
