Everybody Knows...Elizabeth Murray | About the Film | American Masters | PBS
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S32 Ep5

Everybody Knows... Elizabeth Murray

Premiere: 8/3/2018 | 00:01:04 |

This intimate portrait of maverick painter and printmaker Elizabeth Murray explores the relationship between her family life and career, and reconsiders her place in contemporary art history.

About the Episode

Photograph @1994, Sidney B. Felsen

This intimate portrait of maverick painter and printmaker Elizabeth Murray explores the relationship between her family life and career, and reconsiders her place in contemporary art history. Excerpts from her journals voiced by Meryl Streep, verité footage and home videos show Murray’s internal struggles and incredible ambition. Exclusive interviews with art world luminaries describe the thriving New York art scene within which Murray challenged and captivated her viewers. In 2005, Murray was the fifth woman to be celebrated with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Breaking convention, Murray’s paintings still defy efforts at categorization. Through them she made an indelible imprint on the contemporary art world. This film chronicles her remarkable journey from an impoverished childhood in Chicago to the extraordinary art world of lower Manhattan, before she lost her life to cancer in 2007. Everybody Knows…Elizabeth Murray cements Murray’s legacy as one of the great painters of our time. Directed and produced by Kristi Zea.

New York contemporary art maverick Elizabeth Murray painting. Credit: © Barry Kornbluh. Elizabeth Murray, December 1987.

See more art work by Elizabeth Murray.

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PRODUCTION CREDITS

Everybody Knows…Elizabeth Murray is a RubyRed Productions and Human Arts Association Production. Kristi Zea is director and producer. Jacki Ochs is executive producer and producer. Funding is provided in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Stanley Family Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman Foundation, Agnes Gund through the A G Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Sarah Peter, Anne H. Bass, Ehrenkranz Family Foundation, Peter McHugh and Louise McNamee, Robert and Sylvia Mangold, and Sidney Felsen and Joni Moisant Weyl.

About American Masters
Now in its 37th season on PBS, American Masters illuminates the lives and creative journeys of those who have left an indelible impression on our cultural landscape—through compelling, unvarnished stories. Setting the standard for documentary film profiles, the series has earned widespread critical acclaim: 28 Emmy Awards—including 10 for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series and five for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special—two News & Documentary Emmys, 14 Peabodys, three Grammys, two Producers Guild Awards, an Oscar, and many other honors. To further explore the lives and works of more than 250 masters past and present, the American Masters website offers full episodes, film outtakes, filmmaker interviews, the podcast American Masters: Creative Spark, educational resources, digital original series and more. The series is a production of The WNET Group.

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UNDERWRITING

Support for American Masters is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AARP, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, Judith and Burton Resnick, Seton J. Melvin, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, Vital Projects Fund, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Ellen and James S. Marcus, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, Koo and Patricia Yuen, Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, The Marc Haas Foundation and public television viewers.

TRANSCRIPT

Words like zany and goofy are not words that one associates in a way with kind of high art The interesting thing about Elizabeth Murray is that she was a feminist without having to talk about it At a time when people were beginning to say well I can't have children and be an artist I can't be taken seriously if I'm married he appeared to make virtually no concessions to anything 'Whatever it is I'm making, God knows if it's art or not. It's the one instance where I don't give a * what anyone thinks?'

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