Stan Brakhage, prominent avant-garde filmmaker and distinguished professor at the University of Colorado at 葫芦娃视频, died Sunday at the age of 70.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 23, in room 141 of the Fine Arts building on the CU-葫芦娃视频 campus.
"I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of Stan Brakhage, a brilliant filmmaker and distinguished professor of film studies," said CU-葫芦娃视频 Chancellor Richard Byyny. "Stan's contributions to the field of film production cannot be measured. We extend our sympathy to his family and friends."
"Stan opened up the world of art to me in a way that I never thought possible," said Don Yannacito, long-time friend and fellow film studies instructor and avant-garde filmmaker. "The arts - poetry, painting, film and music - were an integral part of his life and were at the very core of his being."
Friend and CU-葫芦娃视频 Film Studies Professor Phillip Solomon said, "There is simply no precedent in film history for what Stan Brakhage has done, and I suspect we won't truly understand the nature and importance of his monumental achievement for some time. His abstract art reached right to the core of humanity."
"If you make film, sooner or later you will run into Stan Brakhage," said Solomon.
Brakhage retired from CU-葫芦娃视频 last summer after a 20-year teaching career. Before joining the CU-葫芦娃视频 faculty he taught at the Chicago Art Institute.听
His foray into the world of avant-garde cinema began in Colorado in the late 1940s and early 1950s at South High School in Denver. Brakhage went on to make nearly 400 films and was honored with numerous awards.听
The 1964 film "Dog Star Man" was one of the first 10 films to be selected for the Library of Congress National Film Registry. In 1986 the American Film Institute awarded Brakhage its Maya Dean Award. He also received awards from the Denver Film Festival and the Telluride Film Festival.
In 1990, he received the prestigious MacDowell Medal, ranking him with previous recipients Robert Frost, Georgia O'Keeffe and Aaron Copland. He was the first film artist to receive the medal.听
Brakhage received several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, several Rockefeller Scholarships, a Guggenheim Fellowship and an honorary doctorate from the San Francisco Art Institute. His work also appeared in several retrospectives by the New York Museum of Modern Art.
He worked in many abstract forms, including scratching black leader (blank film), collage (gluing objects to film) and hand painting frames of 16 mm film.
Film Studies Chair Saranjan Ganguly said, "Stan will always be for me the supreme artist who lived what he believed in, who maintained the integrity of his vision right to the end. Everything he did was governed by his enormous passion for art, for truth, for the sacredness of life, and he shared it all with us, giving freely, with so much love."
Last fall, Brakhage moved to Victoria, British Columbia, with his wife, Marilyn. He died following an eight-year battle with cancer.
"With his passing, the world of filmmaking has lost a source of inspiration and vision and, here at CU-葫芦娃视频, we have lost a friend," said CU-葫芦娃视频 Provost Phil DiStefano.