Jo Mielziner (1901-1976)
Daughters of Atreus, First study for set design
8 x 10 ¾ inches
Graphite on paper, 1936
Initialed on lower right
The play opened October 14, 1936 at Broadway’s 44th Street Theatre.
Handwritten title, date, and signature on lower center of original matte which is now affixed to the verso. Inscription on lower right of matte reads, “For Prince & Barbara – Jo Mielziner- May 1945”.

BIO
Joseph Mielziner was the son of artist Leo Mielziner and Ella Lane McKenna Friend, a writer. Mielziner was the brother of actor-director Kenneth MacKenna. Their paternal grandfather was a rabbi. He studied painting at the Art Students League and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. His brother recruited him as a stage manager for summer stock, where Mielziner discovered his passion for scenic design. With fellowships he received from the Pennsylvania Academy, he had the opportunity to study set design in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. Additionally, he served as an apprentice to Robert Edmond Jones, designer of Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under The Elms.

Mielziner was considered one of the most influential theatre designers of the 20th century, designing the scenery and often the lighting for more than 200 productions, many of which became American classics.

After his education and spending 13 months in Europe “absorbing the revolutionary changes occurring in traditional stage design”, in 1923 he worked for the Theatre Guild in New York as an assistant stage manager and bit actor. Mielziner’s Broadway debut as a designer was in 1927 with The Guardsman, for which he designed the scenery and lighting. His other Broadway credits include the original productions of Sweet and Low, Of Thee I Sing, Another Part of the Forest, Winterset, Oh, Captain!, Dodsworth, Strange Interlude, Carousel, South Pacific, Guys and Dolls, The King and I, A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Gypsy, and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, as well as the film Picnic and the ballet Who Cares?. He won the Academy Award for best color art direction for his work on Picnic.

In the course of his career, Mielziner won seven Tony Awards and was nominated for another five. He also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design. His influence extended outside of the theatre. He was acquainted with the American artist Edward Hopper, who is said to have modeled his well-known painting Early Sunday Morning (1930) after Mielziner’s set for Elmer Rice’s play Street Scene, produced in 1929.

Mielziner designed the theater at Wake Forest University and co-designed the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center with architect Eero Saarinen. He designed the setting for the Vatican Pavilion’s showing of Michelangelo’s Pietà at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

He resided for many years at The Dakota and can be seen working in his studio in an exterior shot in the film Rosemary’s Baby. He died on March 15, 1976, in a New York taxicab four days before his 75th birthday. He was rushing between meetings for The Baker’s Wife, a musical for which he was designing.

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