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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
Along with Robert Edmond Jones, Norman Bel Geddes, and Lee Simonson, Joseph Urban brought the New Stagecraft to America in the 1920s. No other designer of his period lavished more lush color on the stage or brought scene design closer to the level his contemporaries called “Art.” Urban produced the backdrops of the famous Follies for Florenz Ziegfeld, and the Metropolitan Opera continued to use his sets for more than two decades after his death. As early as 1917 the New York Times risked the prediction that “when the historian of the New York stage writes the record, of the uplift of the art of its decoration received in the teens of the twentieth century he will have to give the greatest credit to Joseph Urban.” Instead, he has been virtually ignored: for example, Brockett and Findlay in their history of the modern theatre, Century of Innovation, fail to mention Urban at all. In view of his extensive design record it is surprising that he remains so little known.
1 “Urban the Ambidextrous,” New York Tunes, 16 June 1917, VIII, p.5, col. 6Google Scholar.
2 Brockett, Oscar and Findlay, Robert, Century of Innovation: A History of European and American Theatre and Drama Since 1870 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1973)Google Scholar.
3 Macgowan, Kenneth, The Theatre of Tomorrow (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1924), 21Google Scholar.
4 Adams, Brooks, “Urban Renewal,” Art in America, (April 1988): 43Google Scholar.
5 Dixon, John Morris, “Joseph Urban: Too little Known,” Progressive Architecture 69 (January 1988): 28–29Google Scholar. In the same vein, Brooks Adams quotes Lewis Mumford's observation about the International Magazine Building: “This is theatric architecture. At the first survey, I feel it is perhaps a stunt. It has an ‘exposition’ quality, observable in other of Mr. Urban's designs. But whatever he does goes with a swing.” (“Urban Renewal,”43.)
6 Larson, Orville K., Scene Design in the American Theatre from 1915 to 1960 (Fayetteville, Ark.: University of Arkansas Press, 1989), 43Google Scholar.
7 Goldberger, Paul, “At the Cooper-Hewitt, Designs of Joseph Urban,” New York Times, 26 December 1987, p. 75Google Scholar.
8 The Urban archives are located in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library in the Butler Library, Columbia University, and is the primary source for Urban research.
9 Strawn, Arthur, “Joseph Urban,” Outlook & Independent 155 (18 June 1930): 275Google Scholar.
10 Kossattz, Horst-Herbert, “The Vienna Secession and Its Early Relations With Great Britain,” Studio International 181 (January 1971): 10Google Scholar.
11 Steell, Willis, “The Art of Joseph Urban,” The Theatre 22 (September 1915): 124Google Scholar.
12 The Hagenbund is discussed in Powell, Nicholas, The Sacred Spring (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphics Society, 1974), 96Google Scholar. Dates for Urban's term as President are found in Borsi, Franco and Godoli, Ezio, Vienna 1900 Architecture and Design (New York: Rizzoli, 1986), 327Google Scholar.
13 Strawn, 275, states that Urban received this commission at the age of 23, which would be 1895. Another source, Freund, F. E. Washburn, “Joseph Urban, Scenic Artist,” International Studio (January 1923): 358, places the date in 1897Google Scholar.
14 Quoting a New York Morning Telegraph story, which is included in Literary Digest 116 (29 July 1933): 21Google Scholar.
15 For a discussion of Urban's European architecture see Borsi and Godoli, 284–289.
16 Steell, 125.
17 See Harry, and Mahnken, Janine, “Joseph Urban: An Appreciation,” Educational Thetre Journal, 5 (1963): 55Google Scholar. A further list of Urban's prizes for illustrations can be found in the entry on him in the National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White and Co., 1936), 25:366Google Scholar.
18 “Joseph Urban, Architect, Theatre Designer, Industrial Designer,” The London Studio (January 1934): 34–37Google Scholar.
19 Borsi and Godoli, 286. This is one of several fine books discussing the development of architecture in Vienna at the turn-of-the-century, and one of the few which prominently mentions Urban.
20 Steell, 125.
21 Adams, 43.
22 Steell, 124.
23 Mahnken and Mahnken, 56.
24 Stern, Robert A. M. and others, New York 1930 (New York: Rizzoli, 1987), 236Google Scholar.
25 “Joseph Urban Dies; Versatile Artist,” New York Times, 11 July 1933, p. 17, col. 1Google Scholar.
26 Steell, 124.
27 Adams, 47.
28 A full description may be found in Borsi and Godoli, 289.
29 Strawn, 275.
30 Quoted from the New York Herald Tribune in Literary Digest (29 July 1933): 21.
31 Macgowan, Kenneth, Century Magazine 87 (1914): 416Google Scholar.
32 “Miss Nelson-Terry in Twelfth Night,” New York Times, 24 November 1914, p. 13, col. 1.Google Scholar
33 Cantor, Eddie and Freedman, David, Ziegfeld, The Great Glorifier (New York: Alfred H. King, 1934), 127Google Scholar.
34 For excellent color reproductions of some of Urban's set designs for Ziegfeld, see Carter, Randolph, The World of Flo Ziegfeld (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974)Google Scholar.
35 For a full description of this production see Gordon, Mel, “Percy Mackaye's Masque of Caliban (1916),” The Drama Review, 20 (June 1976): 93–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Merkling, Frank et al. , The Golden Horseshoe (New York: Viking Press, 1965), 124Google Scholar.
37 The development of the cyclorama and Urban's introduction of pointillisme and portals are discussed in Cheney, Sheldon, Stage Decoration (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1928), 62, 67–68Google Scholar.
38 Macgowan, Kenneth, The Theatre of Tomorrow (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921), 21Google Scholar.
39 “Urban the Ambidextrous.”
40 “Art and the Stage Setting of Modern Plays,” New York Times Magazine, 26 November 1916, 14Google Scholar.
41 Cheney, Sheldon, The New Movement in the Theatre (New York: Mitchell Kennerly 1914), 172Google Scholar.
42 Larson, 44.
43 Oenslager, Donald, Stage Design (New York: Viking Press, 1975), 128Google Scholar.
44 Henderson, Mary C., Theater in America (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986), 204Google Scholar.
45 Strawn, 275.
46 National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 25:366.
47 The studio was located at Second Avenue and 127th Street, according to Swanberg, W. A., Citizen Hearst (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961), 323Google Scholar.
48 Winkler, John K., W. R. Hearst An American Phenomenon (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1928), 254Google Scholar.
49 F. E. Washburn Freund, 358.
50 Carter, 134.
51 Pictures of the reconstructed Cosmopolitan Theatre can be seen in Arts and Decoration 19 (October 1923): 40Google Scholar.
52 Urban, Joseph, Theatres (Boston: Theatre Arts, 1929), no paginationGoogle Scholar.
53 Stern, 115. Also includes excellent reproductions of both theatres, 118–119, 621, and 626–627.
54 Stern, 116.
55 Stern, et. al., 627.
56 Urban, Theatres, (See note 52 above).
57 Bay, Howard, Stage Design, (New York: Drama Book Specialists, 1974), 18Google Scholar.