Painting the Town: The Illusionistic Murals of Richard Haas

Director: Amalie R. Rothschild
Screenwriters: Julie Sloane

Institute History

  • 1990 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Amalie Rothschild has fashioned her own exuberant and exemplary film mural based on the life and very-public work of the celebrated architectural muralist Richard Haas. Since 1974 Haas's "trompe l'oeil" paintings have enhanced the appearance of dozens of buildings across America. They restore a sense of cultural history to a nation that is becoming increasingly denatured. His work is at once heroic and witty. He is an artist with a mission-to make the urban environment visually pleasurable, and therefore more livable and humane. Seamlessly using all the techniques available to the documentary filmmaker, including animation, Rothschild has created a spritely modernist portrait of an artist with notable zeal.

— Larry Kardish

Screening Details

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