FREE FILM SERIES AT THE CLARK CELEBRATES THE ERA OF WINSLOW HOMER

For Immediate Release

June 24, 2013

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA—In conjunction with the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute’s exhibitionWinslow Homer: Making Art, Making History, the museum presents the free film series “Homericana: Films of the Artist’s Times and Places.” Film screenings, alternating each week between feature films set in Homer's era and an expansive documentary on his life and work, will be shown Monday afternoons at 3 pm in July and August.
The schedule of screenings is as follows:

Monday, July 1: Glory (1989, 122 min.), the story of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry from its formation as the first African-American regiment in the Civil War to its heroic performance on the battlefield. Edward Zwick’s stirring film stars Matthew Broderick as the Boston Brahmin commander and features Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman among the troops.

Mondays, July 8, July 22, August 5, and August 19: Winslow Homer: Society and Solitude(2007, 113 min.), a documentary profile by Steven J. Ross that follows the artist from his work as an illustrator in New York before the Civil War all the way into the new century, when he had become a reclusive painter of the Maine coast. The film is an engaging mix of art reproduction, location filming, and interviews with scholars—including Marc Simpson, curator of the Clark exhibition.
Monday, July 15: Little Women (1994, 118 min.), a portrayal of family life on the homefront before and during the Civil War. Gillian Armstrong’s meticulous adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel features Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst as the March sisters, Susan Sarandon as their mother, and Christian Bale as the boy next door in Concord, Massachusetts.

Monday, July 29: The Yearling (1946, 128 min.), set in rural Florida after the Civil War. Clarence Brown’s family classic adapts Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's novel and stars Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman. The film won an Oscar for cinematography; a special "Juvenile Oscar" was awarded to Claude Jarman, Jr., who plays a boy enamored of his adopted pet fawn.

Monday, August 12: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, 88 min.), a film that began as Orson Welles’s attempt to top Citizen Kane and wound up a magnificent fragment of a family epic, starring Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead. Based on a novel by Booth Tarkington, the film follows the fortunes of a wealthy Midwestern family as they move from the era of sleigh rides to that of automobiles.

Monday, August 26: The Whales of August (1987, 91 min.), a beautiful story that begins with a sepia sequence of young women of Homer’s time on the Maine coast and dissolves to sixty years later, when two elderly sisters still live in their family home. Lillian Gish, Bette Davis, and Vincent Price star in this moving and gently satiric film from Lindsay Anderson.

About the Clark

Set amidst 140 acres in the Berkshires, the Clark is one of the few major art museums that also serves as a leading international center for research and scholarship. The Clark presents public and education programs and organizes groundbreaking exhibitions that advance new scholarship. The Clark’s research and academic programs include an international fellowship program and conferences. Together with Williams College, the Clark sponsors one of the nation’s leading master’s programs in art history. The Clark receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open daily in July and August (open Tuesday through Sunday from September through June), 10 am to 5 pm. Admission is $15 June 1 through October 31; free November through May; and free year-round for Clark members, children 18 and younger, and students with valid ID. For more information, visit clarkart.edu or call 413-458-2303. The Clark’s library is closed for renovation through September 3, 2013.

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