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EXPOSITION BUILDINGS KLIKE “MOVIE” STUDIOSculptors From Hollywood Create Air COf Realism at Forest ParkSite.St. Louis is being given the secret of how motion picture directors get a million dollar effect out of a few thousand and bewitch the eye with the artificial so completely as to leave no doubt that castled cities are not castle cities afar off, that towns are not real ds towns in the South Seas and that the bigenuineness that reflects down from a: the screen is not always genuine.“Exposition City,” a 45-acre expanse of beverboard and plaster of bi paris in Forest Park, that is to house m the Greater St. Louis Exposition, 01 Sept. 4 to 19, is an exact example of ai Hollywood technique, designed and E being created by a group of artists cl and craftsmen from Famous Players- ic Lasky studios.Their camouflage, for example, has given to the elaborate, turreted entrance, 350 feet wide, a feeling of ci permanency and lavishness that usu- clt; ally attaches only to expositions that are to have run into months. Theirskillful hands have turned out sculp-tored ornamental bits which, affixed st to pylons and towers, create an impression of extravagant expenditure l and permanent beauty. atThe group came from Los Angeles tf more than three months ago to design if and build the Oriental city, which, under light and with its banners and t'. flags flying, likely is to present a w very pleasing night spactacle.The group has worked together ui several years and St. Louisans who ylt; have seen such pictures as “Intolerance,” “Foolish Wives,” and “The Ten if Commandments,” have seen, in the ti impressive settings, some of their ti work. P. G. Alen, a designer and decorator, besides his motion picture work, created the Los Angeles Pageant of Progress. His wife, a student of the costums of the variousperiods of the world history, has costumed several of the pictures of the Lasky and Universal studios.Most of the sculpture has been done by E. Graham Douglas, who' lt;-•* earned a gold medal for some of his cl decorative groups at the San Francisco world’s fair, and Albert Silver, a Spanish sculpture, who designed and executed the Cuban exhibit at the bSan Francisco fair.This pair between them have created heroic busts of 27 presidents, 01 with 9-foot full length figures of Washington and Coolidge, which are to be placed at either end of the Court of Presidents. If the hypercritical hi are inclined to find fault with the elt;recognizable likenesses of any of the statuary, the sculptuors would have them remember that the busts weremodeled in clay and reproduced in plaster within a period of a fewweeks.Besides they have created the molds from which the thousands of ornaments have turned out—more than 35 large eagles that pearch on some of b the taller pylons, 300 that are poised H on the lighting poles, numerous huge bi decorated golden balls and many other smaller designs.Douglas, who studied at the Chicago Art Institute, worked throughout the entire production of the elaborate Lasky film, “The Marriage Maker.” Silver, before taking up motion picture decorative sculpturing, was designer in the United States Mint. Assisting them in making plaster casts are 10 workmen, who so far have used up more than 50 tons of plaster. The decorative sculpturing now is virtually finished and will be in place the•* Ilatter part of the this week. jQuite a number of our people have , motored to Forest Park to view thework and testify as to its beauty. It is worth going miles to see.
Newspaper Details
Gillespie Record
Gillespie, Illinois, US
Thu, Aug 19, 1926
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Greg H.
USA 03 Feb 2023
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