Top 10 Documentary Films About Art, Architecture and Design

Aug 21, 2010 Mary Rayme

Film - www.morguefile.com

Need to inspire art, illustration, architect, and graphic design students? Choose from the list of top documentary films about art and artists below.

Art school is a weird place. Yes, there are certain skills you can learn to become a proficient visual artist but it’s hard to teach other skills such as discipline and imagination. The ten documentary films below are meant to inspire and inform artists and art students in the fine art of their craft and how to be an artist. Think about it. Traditionally artists didn’t go to school, they apprenticed to a successful artist. Show these films, watch these films, and learn from the fine art masters. This list has been created to include the work of a variety of visual artists including: graphic designers, photographers, architects, typographers, fine artists, and folk artists.
To Inform and Delight: The World of Milton Glaser (2008)
Milton Glaser is the illustrator and graphic designer who came up with the brilliant I ♥ New York ad campaign. Today it seems quite generic but only because this unique logo has been copied by everybody and their brother. Milton Glaser is an eloquent and intelligent man with a heart of gold.

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Simon Schama: The Power of Art (2006)
Simon Schama is a British historian and art historian who has the power to make art history interesting and accessible. This is a BBC series that includes segments about the great fine artists: Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso, Rothko. Even a seasoned art history professional has something to learn from Schama. The artwork in this series is beautifully lit and presented to inform and dazzle.
Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye (2000)
This documentary is a fascinating glimpse of one of the pioneers of photography and modern art in the United States. Stieglitz’s photography changed art history forever, as did his famous 291 art gallery in New York City where Pablo Picasso and Anselm Adams were made household names in America.

Read on 

• Alfred Stieglitz – The Eloquent Eye
• Top Art School, California College of the Arts
• The Way Things Go - Rube Goldberg Machine by Fischli and Weiss

The Universe of Keith Haring (2008)
While the quality of Keith Haring’s artwork might not hold up in 100 years next to the likes of Michelangelo, his sense of fun combined with an energetic and generous spirit make him a great artist who has been imitated by many. The best part of this film is the footage of Haring at work; he is a confident draftsman who honed his skills in the subways of New York City.
Helvetica (2007)
Who knew a typeface could be worthy of a documentary film? Helvetica is a great film to show to graphic design students to reveal that typography can be political. Helvetica is the typeface or font used by most highway signs in Europe and America.
Who Gets to Call it Art? (2006)
This is really a biographical film about Henry Geldzahler a former curator of art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Geldzahler was the first to champion such modern artists as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell and Andy Warhol. The Museum of Modern Art, also in New York, would not exist if it were not for Geldzahler, an almost unknown art hero of the first order.
A Man Named Pearl (2006)
Pearl Fryer never went to art school but managed to raise the art of topiary to new heights in his native state of South Carolina. This film is inspirational in that it shows the self-taught Fryer working from sunrise to sunset on his green and growing work of art, his amazing topiary garden. It takes a lot of hard work and discipline to become a great artist and Pearl is no exception to this rule.
My Architect: A Son’s Journey (2003)
American architect Louis Kahn revolutionized the world of architecture through the use of monolithic cement structures. A professor of architecture at both Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, this documentary visits many of his buildings to discuss his style and innovations. This is also a personal film in that the narrator is an illegitimate son of the great architect Louis Kahn.
Herb and Dorothy (2008)
Herb and Dorothy Vogel are art collectors extraordinaire! Really. This middle class couple who live in New York City have amassed a world class art collection by going to art gallery openings and befriending contemporary artists. The film Herb and Dorothy shows the interesting politics of buying, selling and donating artwork.
Sister Wendy: The Complete Collection (1992-1996)
Like Simon Schama, Sister Wendy has a knack for talking about art in a way that makes it fascinating and accessible. And yes, Sister Wendy is a nun complete with black and white habit and a charming lisp and overbite. This 4-DVD set has Sister Wendy travelling from the cave paintings of Lascaux to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.

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