Herman Rosse

Who was Herman Rosse?

Hermann Rosse was a Dutch-born American art director. He won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for the film King of Jazz.

He was born in The Hague, Netherlands and died in Nyack, New York. Herman was the second child of Carel Rosse and Jacoba, Susanna de Haan. The elder sister of Herman, Bertha, Suzanna Rosse became a well known Dutch painter.

Hermann Rosse studied architecture and design at the Royal College of Art, London, and after a period of travel in Asia also attended Stanford University, where he earned his B.A. From 1911 to 1913 he produced most of the decorative interior designs – including paintings, stained glass, tiles, and marquetry – for the Peace Palace at The Hague; and while working there he met his future wife, Sophia Helena Luyt, a landscape architect who was responsible for the design of the formal gardens. Together they moved to California, where Rosse was commissioned to design decorations for the Netherlands pavilion at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. There he also made his first set and costume designs for theatre.