Huck Snyder (1954 - January 23, 1993)

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Huck Snyder, an artist and a designer of vivid stage settings for dancers and performance artists, died on January 23, 1993, at his parents' home in Lansdale, Pa. He was 39.

He died of AIDS, said Elizabeth Dunn, a friend and colleague.

Mr. Snyder, whose full name was Harry William Snyder 4th, created sets and stage furniture that were surrealistic yet extremely simple and almost childlike at times. Imaginative and free in their execution and unmistakably his work, his sets often seemed inseparable from the vision of the performers with whom he worked. The multi-level, boxlike set he designed for the performance artist John Kelly's 1991 work "Maybe It's Cold Outside" was crammed with the colorful and mysterious artifacts of five people's lives and was considered by some to be Mr. Snyder's best work.

Other important collaborations with Mr. Kelly included "Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte," an evocation of the painter Egon Schiele and his work; "Find My Way Home," a retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice; "Love of a Poet," based on Schumann's "Dichterliebe," and "Akin," which depicted the relationships of father-and-son troubadours from the middle ages to the present.

Mr. Snyder also created sets for dances by Bill T. Jones and Bart Cook, and for theater pieces by Ishmael Houston-Jones. He conceived, directed and designed "Circus," a performance-art piece presented in 1987 at La Mama E.T.C.


AIDS Quilt

His paintings and installations have been exhibited at galleries throughout the United States and in solo and group shows in Europe and Japan. His theater work received New York Dance and Performance, or Bessie, Awards in 1985 and 1991 and a 1988 Obie Award for sustained excellence in scenic design. He was nominated for American Theater Wing Awards in 1987, 1988 and 1991.

Mr. Snyder was born in Lansdale. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and attended the Goethe Institute in Berlin.

REMEMBRANCE OF PHONE NUMBERS PAST is a street performance evoking nostalgia from numbers. LuLu LoLo as “Telephone Operator Loretta” attired as a 1940 telephone operator complete with vintage headset attempts to connect passersby with the earliest telephone number they remember. All callers are invited to leave a voice message to the past. On October 15th, 2013, on the southwest corner of Union Square at 14th Street and University Place, Telephone Operator Loretta connected Eric with his friend, the late Huck Snyder, during her Art in Odd Places: Number performance.

Source: www.nytimes.com/1993/01/28/arts/huck-snyder-artist-dies-at-39-designed-stage-sets-for-dancers.html

Further Readings:

NTC's Dictionary of Theatre and Drama Terms by Jonnie Patricia Mobley
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (January 11, 1992)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0844253332
ISBN-13: 978-0844253336
Amazon: NTC's Dictionary of Theatre and Drama Terms

Contains more than 750 entries from classical Greek and Latin roots in a light and non-threatening manner. Clever drawings brighten the pages, and each entry is backed by thorough research.

More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics