When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed in 1927, its members decided to create an annual awards ceremony for outstanding filmmakers. Los Angeles sculptor George Stanley was commissioned with creating the awards to be handed out during these ceremonies.
MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) art director Cedric Gibbons designed the statuette before passing his design on to George Stanley. The statuette depicts "a knight holding a crusader's sword, standing on a reel of film," according to Oscars.org. The five spokes on the film reel symbolize actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers. The base became standardized in 1945.
Originally, Oscars were made of solid bronze with a gold plating. This was abandoned in favor of a pewter-like alloy called Britannia, which is then plated in copper, nickel silver and 24-karat gold. For three years during World War II, the award was made of painted plaster.
R.S. Owens and Company, based in Chicago, manufactures the Oscar statuette, as well as the Emmys, BAFTA and other awards, according to RSOwens.com. It takes three to four weeks to make 50 Oscars, with each statuette being 13 1/2 inches tall and weighing 8 1/2 pounds.
The Oscar's official name is the Academy Award of Merit, but Oscar became the official nickname in 1939. The nickname, however, was common enough in 1934 for columnist Sidney Skolsky to use the term to describe Katharine Hepburn when she won her first Best Actress award. The name "Oscar" possibly derives from Academy librarian and future executive director Margaret Herrick remarking that it resembled her Uncle Oscar.
As of 2010, the award has been presented 2,701 times. The last new category added to the Academy Awards nominations, also at the time of this writing, was the Animated Feature Film Award, which was first presented in 2002 to the movie "Shrek."