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originally published: 01/27/2021

(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- World-renowned artist and feminist trailblazer Audrey Flack is the subject of a new documentary that explores her life and art. The Rutgers Jewish Film Festival presents Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack from the comfort of your home through the Princeton Garden Theatre virtual cinema. Then join the conversation about the film with Academy Award-winning director Deborah Shaffer and Audrey Flack herself on Thursday, February 11 at 4:00pm on Zoom.

Audrey Flack, an acclaimed painter, sculptor, and pioneer of photorealism, is the first photorealist painter whose work was purchased for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Her art resides in major museums around the world. Now in her eighties, she returns to her canvas for the first time in decades and shares her hard-fought struggles as a female artist and mother to find her rightful place in the art world.

Advance registration for the film talk is required. Registration and film ticket information are both available here on the Bildner Center’s website. This program is presented by the Rutgers Jewish Film Festival in cooperation with the non-profit Princeton Garden Theatre, which is currently screening the film virtually as part of its Art on Screen Series.

The Rutgers Jewish Film Festival is a public program of the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life at Rutgers University. The Bildner Center connects the university with the community through public lectures, symposia, Jewish communal initiatives, cultural events, and teacher training.

Audrey Flack, a world-renowned painter, sculptor, and pioneer of photorealism, enjoys the distinction of being the first photorealist painter whose work was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art for its permanent collection. Her work also resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Institute of the National Gallery of Australia, among other major international museums. She is the first woman artist, along with Mary Cassatt, to be included in Janson’s History of Art text. Her public commissions include Monumental Gateway to the City of Rock Hill in South Carolina; Veritas et Justitia in Tampa, Florida; and Islandia in Brooklyn, New York. Books on her work include Breaking the Rules: Audrey Flack, a Retrospective, 1950-1990, edited by Thalia Gouma Peterson (Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1992). Flack is the author of three books: On Painting (Abrams, 1986); The Daily Muse (Abrams, 1989); and Art & Soul (Penguin USA, 1991). She is currently writing a sequel to Art & Soul as well as a memoir. She has taught and lectured extensively around the world and earned numerous honors, including the Augustus St. Gaudens Medal from Cooper Union, an honorary Albert Dorne Professorship at Bridgeport University, and an honorary professorship at George Washington University.

 

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Deborah Shaffer is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker who began making social issue documentaries as a member of the Newsreel collective in the 1970s. She cofounded Pandora Films, one of the first women’s film companies, which produced several shorts. Her first feature documentary, The Wobblies, premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1979. During the 1980s, Shaffer focused on human rights in Central and Latin America, directing many films, including Witness to War: Dr. Charlie Clements, which won the Academy Award for Short Documentary in 1985, and Fire from the Mountain and Dance of Hope, which both played at the Sundance Film Festival. Shaffer directed one of the first post-September 11 films, From the Ashes: 10 Artists, followed by From the Ashes: Epilogue, which premiered at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. She is also the executive producer of the Academy Award-nominated short Asylum and has directed numerous acclaimed public television programs on women and the arts. She directed and produced To Be Heard, which won awards at numerous festivals and aired nationwide on PBS. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award by the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

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