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Hugo Ballin Papers, 1890-1956

3 items
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About this Collection

Hugo Ballin was born March 7, 1879 in New York City. He attended the Art Students League in New York, spent several years traveling and studying in Italy, and became a portrait painter. In 1917, he began working as an art director for Goldwyn Pictures and subsequently moved to California in 1921. In the 1920s, he began writing, producing, and directing films, and formed his own production company, Hugo Ballin Productions, Inc. Ballin's wife, actress Mabel Croft Ballin, was featured in his silent film adaptations of literary classics, such as Jane Eyre (1921) and Vanity Fair (1923). With the advent of talking pictures, Ballin retired from film to focus on painting and writing. As a noted muralist, he completed a number of significant commissioned works across the country during the course of his career, including murals at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and at the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin. He designed a seventeen-foot medallion of Pallas Athena which hung over the entrance to the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. He also published several novels, including The Woman at the Door (1925), Stigma (1928), and Dolce Far Niente (1933). Ballin was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design. He lived in Pacific Palisades until he died in 1956.


Collection Overview

Alternative title
Hugo Ballin Papers
Date Created
1890-1956

Find this Collection

Repository
University of California, Los Angeles. Library Special Collections
Local identifier
Collection 407
ARK
ark:/21198/zz00091vxj
Opac url
https://search.library.ucla.edu/permalink/01UCS_LAL/17p22dp/alma994622813606533
Finding Aid URL
http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft9g50098d/
MANIFEST URL
IIIF Manifest

Access Condition

Rights contact
UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections, A1713 Young Research Library, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575. E-mail: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu. Phone: (310)825-4988

Notes

Description
Hugo Ballin (1879-1956) was born in New York City. He began his Hollywood career creating motion picture sets for Samuel Goldwyn and later worked as a director and producer. He ultimately gave up his film career to focus on art and writing. The collection consists of original paintings and drawings by Ballin, correspondence, literary manuscripts, books, clippings, and photographs.

Keywords

Subjects
Motion picture art directors--United States--Archival resources
Motion picture producers and directors--United States--Archival resources
American fiction--20th century--Archival resources
Ballin, Hugo, 1879-1956--Archives

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