Ernest Albert [Brown]

Albert [Brown], Ernest (1857–1946), scenic designer. The Brooklyn‐born set artist was a prize‐winning student at the Brooklyn Institute School of Design before beginning an apprenticeship in 1877 under Harley Merry, who created scenery for New York's Park Theatre and Union Square Theatre. After setting up design firms in St. Louis, Chicago, and Cedar Rapids, Albert settled in New York where he worked primarily for Klaw and Erlanger and for Charles Frohman. Among the many productions that displayed his work were An American Beauty (1896), The Idol's Eye (1897), The Reverend Griffith Davenport (1899), Ben‐Hur (1899), Sapho (1900), The Casino Girl (1900), The Climbers (1901), The Little Duchess (1901), The Virginian (1904), and George Washington, Jr. (1906). Many critics considered his spectacular sets for Ben‐Hur the high point in his career, one noting, “Nothing approaching it in pictorial display and mechanical ingenuity has ever before been seen in the country.” One of his fortes both as a painter and set designer was autumn and winter scenery, and his winter landscape for the “Flirting in St. Moritz” number in the Hippodrome's Hip Hip Hooray! (1915) was advertised as the largest watercolor ever contrived for the American stage, at 243 feet wide and 70 feet high.