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Stephen Goosson papers

 Collection
Identifier: 2492

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Scope and Contents

This collection chiefly contains set design drawings by American movie set designer and art director Stephen Goosson for various films Goosson worked on from the 1920s to the 1940s. The drawings consist of set designs for Blind Youth (1 sketch), East is West (1 sketch); Feather in Your Hat (2 sketches), The Flame in the Dark (2 plans and 4 sketches), A Thousand and One Nights (18 sketches), an unproduced Frank Capra film about Chopin (photograph reproductions of 19 sketches), and 10 unidentified set sketches. There is also a compact disc containing four scans of sketches for The Love Light. There are also two production stills for Little Lord Fauntleroy and some architectural sketches. In addition, there is a 1972 letter from Goosson describing some of his work and a biographical note and some photocopied biographical information.

Dates

  • Creation: 1920 - 1945

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Advance notice required for access.

Rights Statement for Archival Description

Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Conditions Governing Use

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Cinematic Arts Library at ctlibarc@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Cinematic Arts Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Biographical / Historical

Stephen Goosson (1889-1973) was an American film set designer and art director chiefly from the late 1910s to the 1940s. He was an architect in Detroit, Michigan (1915-1919), before moving to Hollywood to work for Lewis Selznick (1919), Mary Pickford (1920-1921), and Joseph M. Schenck (1921-1925), First National (1925-1927) and then as chief art director for Columbia Pictures (1934-1935, 1944-1948). While at Columbia, he worked on all the Frank Capra productions. In the mid 1940s, he became an oil painter.

Extent

1.75 Linear Feet (1 box and 1 oversize folder)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

This collection chiefly contains set design drawings by American movie set designer and art director Stephen Goosson (1889-1973) for various films Goosson worked on from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Stephen Goosson, August 28, 1972.

Title
Finding aid for the Stephen Goosson papers
Status
Completed
Author
Diann Benti
Date
2022 May
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the USC Libraries Cinematic Arts Library Repository

Contact:
Doheny Memorial Library G4
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0185 United States