"Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs" has been wowing visitors with treasures from King Tut's tomb since last November, but the Atlanta Civic Center isn't putting on the only show of Egyptian splendors in town.
A mile away, the Fox Theatre has quietly radiated its own Tut sheen since opening in 1929. Perhaps the Southeast's best example of Tutmania, its gilded sphinx and scarab reliefs and intricately carved throne chairs are obvious architectural tributes to the discovery of the boy king's tomb by archeologist Howard Carter just seven years earlier.
The Fox's Tut-inspired flourishes will be celebrated Saturday as Peter Lacovara, curator of Egyptian art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum, leads an Egyptomania in Atlanta Bus Tour that includes the Peachtree Street showplace.
Lacovara calls the Fox "a great example" of Egyptian style. That may come as a surprise to those who have accepted the common wisdom that it is mainly of Moorish design — reflecting the Islamic architecture of North Africa and parts of Spain and Portugal.
The truth is the Fox is a, uh, rococo mix of Far Eastern architectural styles — the product of a time when movie palaces were expected to whisk customers off mundane sidewalks and transport them into an elevated realm. An unusual partnership brought this large-scale stage setting to life.
The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine planned the Fox as a meeting hall and decided to make it big enough to include a civic auditorium. The Shriners' potentate legendarily challenged its architects, the Atlanta firm of Marye, Alger and Vinour, to "out-Baghdad Baghdad."
When the Shriners got overextended, however, they brought in William Fox, the Hollywood entrepreneur with his own wide-screen vision, as a tenant over the theater. His auditorium took the form of an Alhambran-style stone fortress topped by turrets and parapets and set under a "sky" of twinkling stars.
"Having its roots and traditions in Arabia," architect Thornton Marye, himself a Shriner, later explained, "we thought it most appropriate to make both the exterior and interior express the architecture recalled by pilgrims of the Orient in their journeys to Mecca."
Motifs from Egypt, Turkey, Persia and Morocco were borrowed "to give interest and harmonious variety" to the Fox's ample public spaces such as lounges, restrooms and foyers, Marye told The Atlanta Constitution in 1930.
The Egypt part was understandable: America was captivated by Tutmania. Atlantans were checking out "dusty books on ancient Egypt, unused for years" from downtown's Carnegie library, the Constitution reported in 1923. The local drugstore Franklin & Cox advertised its Egyptian-styled beads, bangles and earrings ("Scarabs, 85¢ and up"). Women donned Egyptian-styled gowns and headdresses at New York balls. Inevitably, some babies were named "King Tut"; even a boxer took the name.
Certainly, William Fox wanted in on the act. He assigned his wife, Eve Fox, to furnish the theater with pieces inspired by the King Tut discoveries, including those carved throne chair renditions in the ladies mezzanine lounge. The style may have been Egyptian but those thrones and other pieces were American made, by Chicago furniture makers Ketcham and Rothschild.
Yet the theater's grandest Tut-inspired gesture is unquestionably the Egyptian Ballroom. The Fox's largest banquet hall is an art deco interpretation of Egypt's Temple of Karnak.
Here, a Shriner sporting a Fez would fit right in amid the ornaments of winged serpents, columns decorated with sphinx carvings and ceiling beams patterned with cartouches. The vaulted stage is dominated by an intaglio panel depicting Ramses II preparing to kill a Nubian slave. Just above, a vulture takes wing.
It's a bit over the top. But Lacovara rejects any notion that it — or any aspect of the gilded palace — crosses over into kitsch.
"I wouldn't call it kitsch; it's really quite well done," the curator asserts.
"It's the end of the revival tradition we saw in 19th-century American architecture. The Fox is a very classic example of '20s-phase revivalism and the birth of postmodern architecture. It's a strain of revivalism that's very American."
Tut on tap
Egyptomania in Atlanta Bus Tour: 9:30 a.m. Saturday. Carlos Museum curator of Egyptian art Peter Lacovara leads a tour exploring Egyptian revival art and architecture in Atlanta at the Fox Theatre, Oakland Cemetery and the High Museum of Art. Includes a picnic lunch on Oakland's grounds. $50. Space is limited; registration required by noon Friday at 404-727-4280 or asatte2@emory.edu.
"Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs": Through May 17 at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Thursday (last ticket sold at 6 p.m.; exhibition closes at 7:30 p.m.); 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Fridays-Sundays (last ticket sold at 7 p.m.; exhibition closes at 9 p.m.). "Matinee pricing" of $15 per ticket from noon until closing Monday-Thursday (tickets for a family of four, $46). Otherwise, $27.50 Monday-Thursday; $32.50 Fridays-Sundays. www.ticketmaster.com.
Egyptian showplaces
The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings in 1922 coincided neatly with the trend across the U.S. to erect movie palaces that were shows unto themselves.
Carlos Museum Egyptian art curator Peter Lacovara calls Atlanta's Fox Theatre the "best-preserved example" of an Egyptian-styled showplace, but it's hardly the only one. Also still in operation are:
The Egyptian, Los Angeles: The old Grauman's, which opened a month before the Tut discovery in 1922, earned a 2000 National Preservation Honor Award.
The Egyptian Theatre, Coos Bay, Ore.: Remains much as it was at its 1925 opening; it returned to showing movies in 2006.
The Egyptian Theatre, Boise, Idaho: Opened in 1927, narrowly avoided the wrecking ball in the '70s; post-restoration, it shows first-run movies and hosts performances.
Peery's Egyptian Theater, Ogden, Utah: Opened in 1924, its facade features six Egyptian sentries standing watch from its window ledges. Closed for health code violations in 1984 and boarded up for years, it was restored and reopened in 1997 as a performing arts and movie theater.
Cinemark Egyptian 24, Hanover, Md.: A 2000 homage to the palaces of yore, featuring motifs such as 45-foot columns with hieroglyphics at the entrance, murals of pharaohs and a marble floor with a glass-tile Nile River.
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MORE ON THE TUT EXHIBIT
• King Tut is life of the party at Civic Center
• PHOTOS: The King Tutenkhamun exhibit at the Civic Center
• PHOTOS: King Tut revealed in Luxor, Egypt
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