Robert Stromberg is an Emmy Award and Academy Award winning visual effects artist, specialized in matte paintings, who worked for Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton as part of their company Illusion Arts, Inc. on Star Trek: First Contact, the Star Trek: The Next Generation third and fifth season episodes "The Best of Both Worlds" and "A Matter Of Time", the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine second season episode "Tribunal" and the Star Trek: Voyager first season episode "Caretaker". For "Tribunal", Stromberg created the matte painting of Cardassia Prime and for "Caretaker" created the matte paintings for the Ocampa underground city. During his time on Star Trek, Stromberg earned one Emmy Award nomination and two wins. He made his directorial debut with the 2014 Disney film Maleficent, a re-imagining of the iconic Disney villain.
Stromberg earned an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Individual Achievement – Special Visual Effects in 1995 for his work on the television drama Fatherland, shared with Richard Patterson and David S. Williams, Jr., In 2008 he won another Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special for the John Adams episode Join Or Die, for which he also won two Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Created Environment in a Broadcast Program or Commercial and for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Miniseries, Movie or Special. He was previously nominated for a Visual Effects Society Award in 2006 for his work on the drama Memoirs of a Geisha. His work on Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World in 2004 earned him three more nominations and one win: an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects, a BAFTA Film Award nomination for Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects, a Visual Effects Society Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Motion Picture, shared with Brooke Breton, and the win of a Golden Satellite Award for Best Visual Effects.
The following years he worked as matte artist/ digital matte artist on projects such as Tremors (1990), Cape Fear (1991), A Few Good Men (1992), Addams Family Values (1993), Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), The Birdcage (1996), Dragonheart (1996), Daylight (1996), Patch Adams (1998), Battlefield Earth (2000), Cast Away (2000), 15 Minutes (2001), Men in Black II (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), Bad Boys II (2003), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).
In 2010 Stromberg and Rick Carter received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Production Design for their work on Avatar. Star Trek production designer Scott Chambliss is also nominated in this category. Stromberg, Rick Carter, and Kim Sinclair won the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction for their work on Avatar at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. In 2011 Stromberg and Karen O'Hara received the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction for their work on Alice in Wonderland at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. Also in 2011 he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series for his work as Visual Effects Supervisor on the crime series Boardwalk Empire.
