Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Part 797 – Victor J. Hubal and the Joy & Cannon Scenic Studio in St. Paul, MN

Victor J. Hubal (1888-1872) was a scenic artists and member of United Scenic Artists Local 350. He worked as a Chicago-based scenic artist during the early twentieth century before moving to Minnesota. In 1912, he was working at Sosman & Landis where he likely received most of his scenic art training.

Hubal worked for at least three Minnesota-based scenic studios during his career in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” – Twin City Scenic Co. (Minneapolis), Joy & Cannon Scenic Co. (St. Paul) and Universal Scenic Studio (St. Paul). In terms of the Twin City Scenic Co., many of the stage designs are now part of the Performing Arts Collection at the University of Minnesota Libraries, including on identified as Hubal’s. Lance Brockman curated the 1987 University Art Museum exhibit “Popular Entertainment 1895-1925: The Twin City Scenic Collection.” It is a wonderful resource with essays by several people that look at multiple aspects of popular entertainment and the painted aesthetic. The catalogue is still available through Amazon.com and other used bookstore cites. I strongly encourage anyone interested in theatre history or scenic art to add this book to your collection. Here is link to a few used copies on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0938713019/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

The other two Minnesota-based studios that Hubal worked for are less known.  I’ll start with the obscure and short-lived firm, Joy & Cannon Scenic Co. of St. Paul. I have encountered this particular studio a few times over the past five years and the history of each studio founder is quite fascinating.

While researching Hubal, I discovered his WWI draft registration.  He listed his occupation as a “scenic artist” and in regard to his employment status the draft card noted “not employed at present.” However, there was one sentence scribbled below this entry that caught my eye – “Joy & Cannon Scenic Co. in St. Paul.”

Here is the tale of why that studio name was so familiar to me, as it is one more link in the chain of American theatre history that circles back to Masonic scenery.

In 2015, I reconnected with the current steward of St. Paul’s Historic Triune Lodge Building, Kit Cusick. Cusick has tirelessly worked on the preserviation of this building for quite some time. I visited the Triune Lodge building while working as the Curatorial Director for the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center. My trip was to take pictures of a specific lodge room stencil for possible use at the Heritage Center. I first encountered the lodge room stencil when working on the 1996 touring exhibit, “Theatre of the Fraternity: Staging the Ritual Space of the Scottish Rite, 1896-1929.” My 2015 recommendation to replicate and use the stencil fizzled like many other things in Bloomington, and although my relationship with the Minnesota Masonic Charities ended, my relationship with Cusick did not. During another trip Triune Lodge, I looked at the stage area and encountered a Masonic roll drop with a  Joy & Cannon stencil. Coincidentally, my discovery was 100 years after Hubal listed the studio on his draft card.

“Joy & Cannon Scenic Co.  Metropolitan Opera House, St. Paul, Minn” was stenciled on the back of a picture sheet in the lodge room. This suggests that Joy & Cannon were renting the paint frame at the Metropolitan Opera House, and using that space as their studio.

The lodge’s picture sheet included a white center for projections that was circular in shape.  Vaudeville houses, lodge rooms, social halls and early cinemas used similar designs before defaulting to solely white screens. A comparable picture sheet was installed at the Minneapolis Scottish Rite Theater for glass slide projections during degree work. For projections and early films, vibrantly painted draperies, frames and architectural ornamentation surrounded the white center. One way to brighten up a black and white film, especially when the general public is used to colorful scenic illusion on the stage!

Being completely unfamiliar with the history of Joy & Cannon, I immediately emailed Lance Brockman. On January 16, 2018 he responded: “This is (Boyd) Joy and Cannon Studios.  There were as many as 5-6 at one time in the Twin Cities (teens and twenties).  I first learned about them from Vic Hubal’s materials that his son shared with me.  There was a catalog amongst his memorial stuff.  As I was told by Bill Brown [Twin City Scenic Co.] that most of the studios were start-ups from disgruntled employees.  They would strike out on their own and come back once they had lost sufficient money.  Twin City Scenic Co. would intentionally bid projects under cost just to achieve those results.”  

I filed this little bit of studio information away and went on my merry way.  Brockman’s response gave me a few markers when combing through various databases online this week. First of all, having a visual and detail-oriented memory is an asset – except when it comes to looking for my car keys or purse where I seem to forget all pertinent details. However, once in a while that cartoon lamp lights up over my head lights up over my head. That happened when I saw “Joy & Cannon” on the draft card for Hubal.

Joy & Cannon was a scenic studio that appeared during 1916 and had a sporadic existence, as the founders filtered in an out of a few business entities and projects during the First World War.

Joy & Cannon was still being advertised in the Film Yearbook of 1922-1923, which surprised me, after looking at dozens of city directories and cross checking the employment of the two founders. By this time, Cannon was known for his camouflage painting for the United States Marine Crops. And Joy was president of Universal Scenic Studio.

During the second and third decades of the twentieth century scenic studios popped up like daisies across the country. It is hard to convey the scope of painted illusion produced for a variety of entertainments at the time, or those who founded scenic studios.

Here is a list of scenic studios listed in the 1922-1923 Film Yearbook: Acme Scenic Artists Studios (Chicago), Armbruster and Sons (Columbus), Atlanta Scenic Co. (Atlanta), Baker & Lockwood (Kansas City), J. H. Beaumont Velvet Scenery Studios (Kansas City), The Wm. Beck & Sons Co. (Cincinnati), Wm. Bradley Studios (NYC), Wm. Campf Studio (NYC), Cox Scene Painting Studio (Philadelphia), Geo. Davis Scenic Studio, (Philadelphia), Enkeboll Art Co. (Omaha), Excelsior Studios & Theatre Supply Co. (Kalamazoo), Fabric Studios (Chicago), Fetters & Fisher (Philadelphia), Fredericks Scenic Studio (NYC),  Gates and Morang (NYC), Hamilton Studios (NYC), D. C. Humphreys Co. (Philadelphia),  Irwin & Sparks Scenic Studio (Philadelphia), Joy & Cannon Scenic Studio (St. Paul), Kahn & Bowman (NYC), Kansas City Scenic Co. (Kansas City), King Scenic Co. (Dallas), J. B. La Touche (Clearfield, Iowa), Lee Lash Studios (NYC), Law Scenic Studios (NYC), Jos. P. McHugh & Son (NYC), Manhattan Scenic Studios (NYC), Herbert L. Messmore Co. (NYC), Murray Hill Scenic Studios (NYC), New York Studios (NYC), Frank Platzer Studio (NYC), Theo. Reising & Co. (NYC), St. Louis Float & Scenic Co. (St. Louis), Schells Scenic Studio (Columbus), Jno. A. Servas Studio (Rochester, NY), D. Sheek & Co. (Cleveland), Star Scenic Studio, Inc. (Omaha), O.L. Story Scenic Studio (Boston), Allan J. Turner Studio (NYC), Twin City Scenic Co. (Minneapolis). Universal Scenic Artists Studios (Chicago), Werbe Scenic Studio (Kansas City), and Young Bros. (NYC).

This list is only a small portion of studios in the United States during the early 1920s, yet paints a picture of how rapidly the industry was growing in the post-WWI period. Consider that some the major studios were not even mentioned in the Film Yearbook of 1922-1923, such as Toomey & Volland (St. Louis) or Sosman & Landis (Chicago). These well-known giants of the industry had enjoyed a secure position for decades of experience and a dedicated clientele. When they came into existence, there was more work than providers and the competition was friendly. The balance begins to shift by the 1920s, even before the great depression. In many cases, disgruntled employees started their own studio, hoping to retain a greater percentage of their profits for their work. Many were short-lived, as their previous employers targeted the same work and were prepared to take a loss. It was a loss they could afford while crushing the new competition.

But there was also a shift in the industry as the demand for painted scenes began to diminish. The call for fabric draperies and settings ushered in a new era. This combined with the popularity of film caused many studios to falter and eventually close. Even the largest scenic studios were not immune to the industry shift. Joy & Cannon Scenic Studio, as well as many other small firms, appeared at a time when they would encounter a series of challenges, most beyond their control. Embracing the new trends and technologies was the only way to weather the storm. As I continue with the life and times of Thomas G. Moses in the pre- and post-WWI era, the company faltered because of their focus on painted scenery and inability to embrace change. As company president, Moses placed all of his bets on the wrong horse.

Tomorrow, I look at the lives of Boyd Phelps Joy and Gerald V. Cannon, scenic artists and founders of Joy & Cannon Scenic Studio.

To be continued…