Raoul Du Bois
Raoul Pène Du Bois (1914-1985) was a leading American scenic and costume designer whose refined, theatrical sensibility defined much of mid-20th-century Broadway and Hollywood production. Du Bois possessed an uncanny ability to translate dramatic narrative into visually luxurious environments, rendering his work instantly recognizable during the golden age of American theater and cinema. His achievements were formally recognized by the motion picture industry with two Academy Award nominations in the category of Best Art Direction, underscoring his pivotal role in creating immersive cinematic environments that supported and enhanced the dramatic material.
While Du Bois garnered fame for his glamorous, often elaborate stage sets and costumes, his full output reveals a deeper, parallel commitment to the preservation and indexing of historical forms. Active primarily in the theater, he briefly channeled his meticulous aesthetic standards toward federal documentation projects. During the mid-1930s, specifically 1935 and 1936, he contributed significantly to the documentation of American material culture, culminating in the 15 Index of American Designs. This exhaustive, visual inventory cataloged objects ranging from simple Carving and Doll forms to the charming, vernacular Hobby Horse Toy.
This dichotomy demonstrates an unusual breadth in his aesthetic focus: the creation of ephemeral, high-budget spectacle alongside the diligent recording of enduring folk art. It is perhaps telling that an artist celebrated for grand, sweeping stage designs found equal merit in studying the precise construction and history of a child's toy. This dedication to meticulous detail ensured the lasting quality of his work across all mediums.
The enduring precision of his production designs and the documentation he created are now held in major institutional collections, including the National Gallery of Art. Many elements of his collected historical documentation are now in the public domain, allowing institutions to make museum-quality reproductions available globally. Researchers interested in the detailed execution of his theatrical vision can often locate Raoul Du Bois prints in various digitized archives, ensuring his detailed aesthetic standards continue to inform contemporary scholarship and design practice.
