At the 25th annual Art Directors Guild Awards, production designer Stuart Wurtzel will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award, the guild announced today.
The award comes in recognition of the “exceptional spectrum” of designs Wurtzel has created for film, TV and theater over the course of six decades.
“From…Hannah and Her Sisters to his iconic evocation of New York during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s in Angels in America, Stuart Wurtzel’s contribution to the art of Production Design stands alone,” said Mark Worthington, Art Directors Council Chair.
An Academy Award nominee and Emmy winner, Wurtzel has collaborated throughout his storied career with prominent directors, ranging from Peter Yates to Woody Allen. On the TV side, he recently designed Showtime’s The Loudest Voice, along with HBO’s Divorce.
Additional credits include Enchanted, Stepmom, Hair, Mermaids, Romeo Is Bleeding, Three Men and a Little Lady, Old Gringo, Brighton Beach Memoirs, The Mambo Kings, When a Man Loves a Woman, I.Q., Charlotte’s Web, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, The Ghost and the Darkness, Marley and Me, Hope Springs, and Ricki and the Flash.
This year, the ADG will break with tradition, with respect to its awards ceremony, scheduled for Saturday, April 10. “In response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” they said, “[it] will be presented on a virtual platform, streaming to a worldwide and more inclusive audience.”
Joining Wurtzel as an honoree this year is renowned showrunner Ryan Murphy, who will be accepting the guild’s Cinematic Imagery Award. Announcements on additional honorees in the fields of Set Designers & Model Makers (SDMM), Scenic, Title & Graphic Artists (STG) and Illustrators & Matte Artists (IMA) will follow shortly.