Eugene Lourie; Art Director for 2 Jean Renoir Classics

Eugene Lourie, a former painter and ballet set designer better known as the internationally heralded art director for film director Jean Renoir’s “Grand Illusion” and “The Rules of the Game” has died.

His daughter, Anita Bigelow, said Wednesday that her father--who directed a series of science fiction thrillers in the 1950s--was 88 when he died Sunday from complications of a stroke at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills.

Lourie was also a visual effects specialist nominated for an Oscar for the 1969 film “Krakatoa, East of Java,” and he documented his half-century in Hollywood with the book “My Work in Films.”

Born in 1903 in the Soviet Union, Lourie went to France in the 1920s and supported himself for a time as an artist and dancer before working with Renoir on “Grand Illusion” in 1937 and “The Rules of the Game” in 1939. He came to the United States in 1941.

His credits through the 1960s included “This Land Is Mine,” “The Southerner,” “Diary of a Chambermaid,” “The River,” “Limelight,” “Confessions of an Opium Eater” and “Battle of the Bulge.”

He also directed and created the special effects for the 1953 film “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.”

In his memoirs, Lourie reminisces about his 50 years in film and stage, giving an insider’s look at how the movies are made and who makes them.

In addition to his daughter, Lourie is survived by his wife, Laure.