MGM Style: Cedric Gibbons and the Art of Hollywood’s Golden Age

Film historian Gutner (Gowns by Adrian) takes a visually luxurious, information-rich look at MGM art designer Cedric Gibbons. Gutner reveals that Gibbons (1890–1960), a key figure in creating the studio’s opulent aesthetic, had a Dickensian backstory to his glamorous career; after his mother’s death and his father’s subsequent desertion of the family in 1910, Gibbons had to abandon plans to study architecture and instead enter construction work to support his two much younger siblings and his elderly grandparents. (MGM publicity would later craft Gibbons a more genteel background.) Fortunately for him, the still-nascent film industry needed people with his skills, who could create ingenious sets while also staying within budget. He started in film at Goldwyn Pictures in 1918, and became its supervising art director in 1921, continuing to hold the same role after the company merged with several others to form MGM in 1925. From 1928’s Our Dancing Daughters, which made then-innovative use of the Art Deco style for its sets, to the reproduction of Versailles (which Gibbons claimed surpassed the original) for 1938’s Marie Antoinette, up until his 1954 retirement, Gibbons helped make set design part of the magic of film. This trip back to Hollywood’s golden age will be a treat for any movie buff, and perhaps also inspirational for tomorrow’s filmmakers. (Oct.)