Stephen Goosson (1889-1973) American, Oil on Canvas. Depicts the city streets of Paris in the Montmartre neighborhood. Signed and dated '48 bottom right. 

Condition: Commensurate with age. 

Overall: 23 X 19 in. 

Sight: 15 1/2 X 11 1/2 in. 

Depth: 3 in. 

#3780 . 

Stephen Goosson was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on March 24th, 1889. He studied architecture at Syracuse University and went to work as an architect in Detroit in the 1910s. He moved to New York City in 1917 where he became fascinated with painting and design, traveling overseas in 1918 to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts of Paris. When he returned to America the next year he started his film career as art director for producer Lewis J. Selznick. Gossoon made a name for himself working for Mary Pickford in 1921 when he invented new visual effects methods and materials for her film Little Lord Fauntleroy. Over the next decade he worked on several pieces, particularly The Hunchback of Notre Dame for Universal and films for Fox Film Corporation such as New Movietone Follies of 1930. He eventually was hired full-time by Columbia Pictures in 1931 where he served as supervising art director for 25 years, becoming the principal designer for most of Frank Capra’s films there, including You Can’t Take It With You. Goosson was nominated for an Academy Award for the El Brendel musical Just Imagine and eventually won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction for Capra’s critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful Lost Horizon. His designs for the film have been noted as excellent examples of the Streamline Moderne style that reached the height of its popularity that year. Additional credits include Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Theodora Goes Wild, and The Little Foxes. In 1937 he was elected the first president of the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors, the forerunner of the Art Directors Guild, and was elected for a second term in 1947. He was eventually inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame in 2007. In the late 1940s he created the designs for three significant film noirs that are considered pinnacles of the genre: Gilda, Dead Reckoning, and The Lady from Shanghai. Like many who worked in Hollywood he faced the idiocy of the McCarthy era witch hunts, and was blacklisted for the next two decades. He spent most of those years traveling abroad, devoting himself to painting watercolors and oils in Paris and volunteering building film sets there, sometimes using fake names. He returned to America for good in 1970 after suffering a stroke, and died from a second one at his home in Woodland Hills, California on March 25th, 1973.

Commensurate with age.