The Phoenicia Playhouse, as part of its 50th Season, presents a Weekend of Films - Concluding with a fascinating local history Documentary film… The First Artist in America!
Sunday, September 13th - Matinee Screening @ 2:00 pm
(doors open at 6:30 pm)
The First Artist in America
The Life and Times of John Vanderlyn – Artist
A film by Tobe Carey
Post-Show Q&A with Director Tobe Carey
DVDs of the film for sale!
Popcorn will be available at concessions!
Run Time: 76 Minutes
The Phoenicia Playhouse
10 Church Street
Phoenicia, NY 12464
Check out the Film Trailer here:
Tickets available at the door or in advance here:
About the Film:
John Vanderlyn “...is pronounced to be the first painter that now is or ever has been in America.”
~ Aaron Burr, 1802
The First Artist in America is the story of John Vanderlyn, the celebrated artist who portrayed seven American presidents, rose to fame as a 19th century neoclassical history painter, and died penniless and alone in his hometown of Kingston, New York.
“The model of the misunderstood, under appreciated American artist going unhonored, unrecognized, uncompensated in your native land starts with John Vanderlyn.”
~ John Thorn, Historian/Author
As the protégé of Aaron Burr, John Vanderlyn was the first American artist to study in France where he began his pursuit of history painting. His self portrait was the first painting by an American artist shown in the Paris Salon. Vanderlyn’s Marius Amid the Ruins of Carthage won a gold medal from Napoleon at the Paris Salon of 1808. His 1814 classical nude Ariadne Abandoned and Asleep on the Island of Naxos caused a scandal when shown in New York, requiring separate showings for men and women. In 1818 Vanderlyn opened the first American art gallery—the Rotunda—in New York City, exhibiting 360° panoramas, his history paintings and portraits of notables like presidents Madison and Monroe.
By 1829 Vanderlyn had lost his lease for the Rotunda, and he never recovered from the financial loss. He scrambled for portrait commissions and traveled west to New Orleans, north to Montreal, and to Havana, Cuba exhibiting his 125 foot Panorama of Versailles—now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Beginning in the mid 1830's, Vanderlyn returned to Paris for nearly ten years. With the help of French artists he worked on his Landing of Columbus, which was mounted in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in 1847. This proved to be his final large history painting.
John Vanderlyn was born in Kingston, New York on October 18, 1775, and died in Kingston on September 23, 1852.
DIRECTOR BIO:
Tobe Carey is an award-winning documentary maker with 30 years experience. Beginning with innovative programs like Giving Birth, honored at the First Global Village Video Festival in 1972, through School Board Blues – A Docu-Memoir, he has produced dozens of long and short form programs. His films School Board Blues, Deep Water: Building the Catskill Water System (co-produced with Artie Traum and Robbie Dupree) and Indian Point - Nowhere to Run were featured at the 2002, 2003, and 2004 Woodstock Film Festival.
Tobe is president of Willow Mixed Media, Inc., a not-for-profit group specializing in arts projects and documentaries about issues of social concern. Among his productions are The Hudson River PCB Story, Woodstock Summer of ’94, Cancer: Just A Word...Not A Sentence, The March for Disarmament and Always Creative with Linda M. Montano.
