Art Films at the Library

In partnership with the Fredericksburg Center for Creative Arts and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the CRRL is proud to offer short films exploring artists and the creative process. Films and notes courtesy of The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Wednesdays at 7pm, Headquarters Theater.

February 22

Frank Hurley: The Man Who Made History

Hurley is noted as having been the photographer for Ernest Shackelton's amazing adventure trying to reach the South Pole. The film follows Hurley's footsteps in the early 1900's to the Antarctic, Belgium, Papua New Guinea, Israel and Australia to see if he was a giant of photography or a conjurer with a camera. (c2004. 53 min.)  

March 28

George Caleb Bingham  

The film portrays one of America's foremost 19th-century painters, whose vivid work provides us with an unrivaled view of life along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. The program also covers Bingham's role as the creator of political genre painting. (2004/28 min)

J.M.W. Turner  

The film chronicles the rise of J.M.W. Turner, one of the greatest landscape painters of all time, who rendered the subtle effects of light and atmosphere in revolutionary ways. A barber's son, he entered the Royal Academy art school at age 14 and became, over the course of six decades, the leading British artist of his era. This overview of Turner's career and influences includes footage of locations important to him in Wales, Switzerland, and England, and readings from writers and artists of the era, including John Ruskin and Lord Byron. (2008/30 min.)

April 11

Cairo Museum 

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo is a world-renowned cultural center filled with some of the ancient world's most precious artifacts, including the famed burial mask of King Tutankhamun and the Royal Mummies of Luxor. The museum's collection is so large that it has traditionally shown only half of its holdings at any one time. (2010/27 min)

The Egyptian Collection: The Beauty of It All

Fleur Cowles conducts viewers through rooms in the British Museum, explaining particular artifacts and discussing the ancient Egyptians. The Rosetta stone is featured. (1991/26 min)

 May 23

The Fantastic World of M.C. Escher: A Look at the Life and Works of the Famous Graphic  Artist

Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelius Escher’s (1898–1972) distortions of space and time, fantastic imagery, and confounding optical illusions intrigue people to this day.

This video reveals the man and his methods behind these mysterious prints through accounts by friends and mathematicians, computer animated recreations of his work, and a look at his sources of inspiration in Italy and Spain. (2006/50 min)

June 27

Mary Cassatt: A Brush with Independence 

The extraordinary story of a woman who defied tradition, a painter whose work captivated Edgar Degas, and the only American asked to join the French Impressionists.

Best remembered for her tender yet unsentimental depictions of mothers and children, Cassatt was also a driving force for women's suffrage and other issues of her day. (2003/ 57 min.)

July 25

Georgia O'Keeffe 

This documentary portrays the legendary painter as she candidly reveals her warmth, humor, and practical wisdom. For the first time on camera, O'Keeffe openly discusses her work and inspirations taken from the haunting mountain deserts of New Mexico. (2006/45 min.)

With Hand and Heart: A Portrait of Southwestern Native American Artists

An introduction to the thousand-year-old artistic traditions of the American Southwest, the film visits Native American communities in New Mexico and Arizona and shows examples of various art forms, including pottery, figure making, and textiles. (2006/28 min.)

August 29

Statue of Liberty

Filmmaker Ken Burns presents the definitive portrait of this great lady of the American imagination, in a program that won nominations for both an Academy Award and an Emmy.

Follow her life, from her creation by French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, through her painstaking construction and accident-prone dedication in 1886. Narrated by David McCullough. (2004/60 min.)

September 26

Surrealist Film: The Stuff of Dreams

Surrealist cinema sought to break with the conventional linear narrative style in favor of chance events and a world of the subconscious. This program analyzes the origin, evolution and legacy of this cinematic movement whose stylistic artifacts can still be found in today's mass culture. Key figures of Dadaism and Surrealism are highlighted including Germaine Dulac, Luis Bunuel and Man Ray with excerpts from their works and other films of the genre. (2005/39 min.)

Dada's Son: Jimmy and Max Ernst

The film presents an intimate and personal look at the lives and works of Jimmy and Max Ernst. From the Dada movement in the early 1900s to surrealism in the 1920s and finally to abstract surrealism and modernism, theirs is the history of 20th-century art. (2006/28 min.)

October 24

The Art of Quilting

Previously identified with an older folk culture of this country, quilts now are creatively made by contemporary artists and hang in galleries. Divided in three segments, this video highlights Quilt National, the premier exhibition of quilts today. Then it focuses on the Chicago School of Fusing and then visits Art Quilts of Philadelphia, a biennial showing. Myriads of techniques are revealed as well as artists at work.  (2007/60 min.)

November 28

Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision

The film reveals the origins of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and tells the story of its 21 year old creator, a Yale architecture student. Lin's plan was selected from over 1,000 different designs.  What began as one of the country's most bitterly disputed monuments became one of the world's most inspirational and frequently visited memorials. (2004/83 min.)

December 26

Cathedral

This award-winning animated film, hosted by author David Macaulay, takes us into the heart of a medieval town in the year 1214. The town’s church has just burned, but miraculously the cloak of the Virgin Mary, the church’s precious relic, was saved. In order to pay homage to their patroness, the townspeople construct a great cathedral. Through a combination of fine animation and live shots, Macaulay reveals in detail how cathedrals were planned and constructed, where the revenue to build and maintain such projects came from, and how cathedrals functioned as microcosms of medieval life. Explores the design of Notre Dame de Beaulieu, a representative Gothic cathedral. (2006 / 60 min.)