Education
Carl Toms was born in 1927 at Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, England. His parents were both tailors and neither of them entirely approved of Toms' choice to work in the theatre, preferring that he become an architect. Even after he had made his name in the theatre, his mother would still ask when he intended to get "a proper job". As a teenager, Toms first studied at the Mansfield College of Art in Mansfield where he met and befriended Alan Tagg, who would also become a notable stage designer. They were both greatly influenced by a young teacher from Yorkshire, Hazel Hemsworth. Toms left Mansfield in the early 1940s to serve in the Royal Ordnance Corps during World War II. After the war, he went to the Royal College of Art where he studied with Cecil Beaton among others. Toms left the Royal College of Art to train under Margaret Harris, George Devine and Michel Saint-Denis at the Old Vic School in the late 1940s. It was Harris, however, who influenced the next major course of his life by introducing Toms to Oliver Messel with whom he would eventually apprentice with from 1952 to 1957.
Toms' first job under Messel was to make models for a penthouse suite at the Dorchester Hotel. At the same time Messel was working on a new ballet for the Royal Opera House commissioned to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and three successive operas at Glyndebourne Festival, all of which Toms assisted on. Messel had a strong interest and passion for French culture which highly influenced his work. As a result Toms' work became highly influenced by French designers, painters, and musicians as well. Many of the masks and models Toms made during this period are now on display at the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden which display this influence.
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