Art in the Cinema: The Mid-Century Art Documentary

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In the 1940s and 1950s, hundreds of art documentaries were produced, many of them being highly personal, poetic, reflexive and experimental films that offer a thrilling cinematic experience. With the exception of Alain Resnaiss Van Gogh (1948), Henri-Georges Clouzots Le Mystre Picasso (1956) and a few others, most of them have received only scant scholarly attention. This book aims to rectify this situation by discussing the most lyrical, experimental and influential post-war art documentaries, connecting them to contemporaneous museological developments and Euro-American cultural and political relationships. With contributors with expertise across art history and film studies, Art in the Cinema draws attention to film projects by Andr Bazin, Ilya Bolotowsky, Paul Haesaerts, Carlo Ragghianti, John Read, Dudley Shaw Aston, Henri Storck and Willard Van Dyke among others.

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This remarkable book charts the development, as well as the public and critical acceptance, of the art film documentary at the mid-point of the 20th century. In a series of elegantly written and deeply perceptive essays by some of the most respected authorities in the field, such classic films as The Mystery of Picasso (1956), Henry Moore (1951), and the experimental feature film Pictura (1951) are brought back to public attention in a volume that is an essential text for both cinema historians and art lovers as well. A dazzling volume in every respect bravo! -- Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan Professor of Film Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
It is not well-known today that in the aftermath of World War II, emerging trends in media and international alliances, ideas about mass communication and the democratization of culture, and representation of national identity converged to produce a "golden age" of films about art and artists in Europe and the U.S. Art in Cinema is an invaluable resource on the mid-century heyday of the art documentary. -- Susan Felleman, Professor, Art History & Film and Media Studies, University of South Carolina, USA

Author Bio

Steven Jacobs is Associate Professor at Ghent University and the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is an art historian specializing in the relations between film and the visual arts a topic on which he published widely. Dimitrios Latsis is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the School of Image Arts of Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada. He has published widely in the fields of American visual culture, historiography and theory and cinema and archival studies. Birgit Cleppe is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Art History, Ghent University, Belgium. She also teaches history of architecture at KASK & Conservatorium in Ghent, Belgium.