Irwin W. Young was chairman of the board of Du Art Film Laboratories and Du Art Video when he was voted the 15th recipient of the Gordon E. Sawyer Award.

A pillar of the New York film community, Young helped bring numerous independent films to the screen through Du Art Laboratories. As a producer himself, some of the films he was responsible for are “Whatever” in 1998, “Caught” in 1995, “American Me” in 1992 and, in 1964, “Nothing but a Man,” which was a double prizewinner at the Venice Film Festival.

In 1979, the Academy honored Young, Paul Kaufman and Frederick Schlyter from Du Art Laboratories with a Technical Achievement Award for the development of a computer-controlled paper tape programming system and its application in the motion picture laboratory.

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) awarded him its Progress Medal in 1987. He also is the recipient of the New York State Governor’s Arts Award, and the Independent Feature Project’s First Annual Gotham Lifetime Achievement Award.

An active member of numerous organizations, Young served as president of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, a board member of the Independent Feature Project and an Associate Member of the American Society of Cinematographers. In addition, Young has been President of SMPTE, three times president of the Association of Cinema and Video Laboratories, chairman and board member of The Moving Image, Inc, a Fellow of the British Kinematograph Sound and Television Society and a member of the Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities, and the New York State Council of the Arts.