Irene Sharaff

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Irene Sharaff (January 23, 1910 - August 10, 1993) was an American award-winning costume designer.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Sharaff was born in Boston and studied at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, the Art Students League of New York, and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.

After working as a fashion illustrator in her youth, Sharaff turned to set and costume design. Her debut production was the 1931 Broadway production of Alice in Wonderland, starring Eva Le Gallienne.

Sharaff's work was featured in the movies West Side Story (Academy Award, 1961), Cleopatra (Academy Award, 1963), Meet Me in St. Louis, Hello, Dolly!, Mommie Dearest, The Other Side of Midnight, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Academy Award, 1966), Guys and Dolls, The Best Years of Our Lives, The King and I (Academy Award, 1956), An American in Paris (Academy Award, 1951),Funny Girl and Porgy and Bess.

She also designed sets and costumes for American Ballet Theater, the New York City Ballet, and the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, and contributed illustrations to fashion magazine's such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Among Broadway design credits include Idiot's Delight, Lady in the Dark, As Thousands Cheer, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Flower Drum Song, and Jerome Robbins's Broadway.

Her use of silks from Thailand for the movie version of The King and I created a trend in fashion and interior decoration.

[edit] Private life

Sharaff's companion was Mai-Mai Sze (d. 1992), a China-born fashion model turned actress, painter, and writer. [1]

Sze was one of the six children of Dr. Sao-Ke "Alfred" Sze (né Shih Chao-chi, 1877-1958)[2], a Cornell University graduate who served as China's minister to the Court of St. James's (1914-1921, 1929-1932), its minister (1921-1923, 1924-1929, 1933-1935) and ambassador to the United States (1933-1937), and China's minister of foreign affairs.[1][3]. Sze's mother, the former Yu-hua "Alice" Tang (b. 1886), had been a lady in waiting to Empress Dowager Cixi of China, her uncle Tang Shaoyi was a prime minister of the Republic of China, and her cousin Pao-yu Tang was the first wife of the Chinese diplomat and prime minister Dr. V.K. Wellington Koo.[4]

Irene Sharaff died of congestive heart failure, complicated by emphysema, at the age of 83.


[edit] Awards and nominations

The TDF/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award was named for her. Sharaff was its first recipient in 1993. The award is now bestowed annually to a costume designer who, over the course of his or her career, has achieved great distinction and mastery of the art in theatre, film, opera or dance.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

  1. ^ Leo Lerman, "The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman", NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007, p. 152
  2. ^ Howard Lyon Boorman and Joseph K.H. Cheng, Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, New York: Columbia University Press, 1970
  3. ^ "Alfred Sze Dies; Diplomat was 80", The New York Times, 5 January 1958
  4. ^ Wise Wives - TIME
  • Marvine Howe, "Irene Sharaff, Designer, 83, Dies; Costumes Won Tony and Oscars", The New York Times, 17 August 1993.
  • Irene Sharaff, "Broadway and Hollywood: Costumes Designed by Irene Sharaff", Van Nostrand Reinhold Co (1976)

[edit] External links

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Tony Award for Best Costume Design

Lucinda Ballard (1947) · Mary Percy Schenck (1948) · Lemuel Ayers (1949) · Aline Bernstein (1950) · Miles White (1951) · Irene Sharaff (1952) · Miles White (1953) · Richard Whorf (1954) · Cecil Beaton (1955) · Alvin Colt (1956) · Cecil Beaton (1957) · Motley: Margaret Harris / Sophie Harris / Elizabeth Montgomery (1958) · Rouben Ter-Arutunian (1959) · Cecil Beaton (1960) · Lucinda Ballard (1962) · Anthony Powell (1963) · Freddy Wittop (1964) · Patricia Zipprodt (1965) · Gunilla Palmstierna-Weiss (1966) · Patricia Zipprodt (1967) · Desmond Heeley (1968) · Loudon Sainthill (1969) · Cecil Beaton (1970) · Raoul Penè Du Bois (1971) · Florence Klotz (1972) · Florence Klotz (1973) · Franne Lee (1974) · Geoffrey Holder (1975)