Robert Herlth(1893-1962)
- Production Designer
- Art Director
- Costume Designer
Influential German art director, the son of a brewer. Herlth studied at
the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule in Berlin. Between 1916 and 1918, he
designed his first theatrical sets during wartime army service in
Vilnius, collaborating with the set designer
Hermann Warm. From 1922, he worked
in tandem with Walter Röhrig on some of
the most seminal motion pictures made by Ufa. He put into being at once
elaborate and massive baroque sets for stage and screen, as well as the
distorted, expressionist visions of directors like
Fritz Lang and
F.W. Murnau. Herlth also excelled at
creating the simpler sets required for the more intimate and
naturalistic Kammerspielfilms. His best work in both categories is well
exemplified by
Le dernier des hommes (1924),
Faust (1923),
Le congrès s'amuse (1931) and
Amphitryon (1935). The partnership
with Roehrig ended in 1936 and Herlth began to work on more commercial
properties. After the war, he alternated routine entertainments
(Petite maman (1950),
L'auberge du Cheval Blanc (1952) with the
occasional masterpiece
(Film sans titre (1948)). For his
work on the two-part adaptation of Les buddenbrook (1959) he was awarded the
German Film Award (Bundesfilmpreis) in 1959.
