Robert Breer Explained

Robert Breer
Birth Date:30 September 1926
Birth Place:Detroit, Michigan
Death Place:Tucson, Arizona
Nationality:American
Field:Experimental film, Abstract painting, Sculpture
Movement:Post-Modernism, Modernism
Works:Floats

Robert Carlton Breer (September 30, 1926  - August 11, 2011) was an American experimental filmmaker, painter, and sculptor.[1]

Life and career

Born in 1926, Breer began his artistic career as a painter after studying at Stanford University and Paris.[2] "A founding member of the American avant-garde,"[3] Breer was best known for his films, which combine abstract and representational painting, hand-drawn rotoscoping, original 16mm and 8mm film footage, photographs, and other materials.[4]

After experimenting with cartoon animation as a child, he started making his first abstract experimental films while living in Paris from 1949 to 1959, a period during which he also showed paintings and kinetic sculptures at galleries such as the renowned Galerie Denise René.[5] [6] [7]

Breer explained some of the reasons behind his move from painting to filmmaking in a 1976 interview:

Breer also taught at Cooper Union in New York from 1971 to 2001.[8] He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1978.[9]

Breer died on August 11, 2011, at his home in Tucson.[10] [11]

Influences

His aesthetic philosophy and technique were influenced by an earlier generation of abstract filmmakers that included Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling, Walter Ruttmann, and Fernand Léger, whose work he discovered while living in Europe. Breer was also influenced by the concept of Neo-plasticism as described by Piet Mondrian and Vasarely.

Legacy

Scholarly publications on Breer's work and interviews with the artist can be found in Robert Breer, A Critical Cinema 2: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers by Scott MacDonald, An Introduction to the American Underground Film by Sheldon Renan, Animation in the Cinema by Ralph Stephenson, and Film Culture magazine.[12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

Breer won the 1987 Maya Deren Independent Film and Video Artists' Award, presented by the American Film Institute.[17]

His film Eyewash was included in Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film 1947-1986.[18] [19]

Archives

The following films were preserved by Anthology Film Archives:[20]

The following films were preserved by the Academy Film Archive:[21]

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. William Grimes, "Robert Breer, Pioneer of Avant-Garde Animation, Dies at 84", The New York Times, August 17, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/movies/robert-breer-pioneer-of-avant-garde-animation-dies-at-84.html.
  2. https://aarongalleries.com/product-category/artists/robert-breer/
  3. http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2008marchapril/breer.html Harvard Film Archive
  4. http://www.cmoa.org/international/the_exhibition/artist.asp?breer Carnegie International Museum of Art Website
  5. , "Screening Room with Robert Breer (1976)"
  6. http://www.acmi.net.au/robert_breer.htm Australian Center for the Moving Image
  7. http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.4/articles/breer1.4.html Animation World Network Website
  8. http://www.film-gallery.org/BREER.html The Film Gallery
  9. https://www.nytimes.com/1978/04/02/archives/guggenheim-foundation-announces-1978-awards.html The New York Times
  10. http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/ Frameworks Listserv
  11. http://moviecitynews.com/2011/08/report-experimental-filmmaker-robert-breer-dies-at-85/ Movie City News
  12. Wetzel, Roland, Laurence Sillars, Ute Holl, Andres Pardey, and Laurence Sillars. Robert Breer. Bielefeld: Kerber, Christof, 2011. Print.
  13. MacDonald, Scott. A Critical Cinema 2: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Print.
  14. Renan, Sheldon. An Introduction to the American Underground Film. New York: Dutton, 1967. Print.
  15. Stephenson, Ralph. Animation in the Cinema. London [u.a.: Zwemmer Limited] u.a., 1967. Print.
  16. Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, "Interview with Robert Breer," Film Quarterly, 56-57 (Spring 1973), p. 44.
  17. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/deren-2/
  18. Zorn, John, Martin Scorsese et al. Treasures IV: American Avant Garde Film, 1947-1986. San Francisco, Calif: National Film Preservation Foundation, 2009.
  19. https://screenrant.com/weirdest-avante-garde-films-50s-ranked/ 10 Weirdest Avant-Garde Films Of The 50s, Ranked|ScreenRant
  20. http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/collections/preserved Anthology Film Archives Collections
  21. Web site: Preserved Projects. Academy Film Archive.