Amalie Rothschild was a painter, sculptor, philanthropist and guiding spirit of Baltimore's art community for more than half a century. Until her death last year at 85, Rothschild's long career of exhibiting and supporting local art made her one of the city's most beloved figures.
Tonight, Rothschild's achievements will be honored with a screening of Nana, Mom, and Me, a documentary film about the artist's life and work by her daughter, photographer and filmmaker Amalie R. Rothschild. The film will be shown at 7:30 p.m. at the gallery of the Creative Alliance in Highlandtown.
Nana, Mom, and Me explores the complex relationship between three generations of Rothschild women, the artist, her daughter and her mother, Amalie Rosenfeld Rothschild, known as Nana. It was one of the first autobiographical documentary films of its type, presaging such later works as director Martin Scorsese's Italian American and Ross McElwee's Sherman's March.
The screening kicks off a four-day Maryland Documentary Symposium sponsored by the Creative Alliance that will present 40 short films documenting Maryland life and culture as well as lectures and panel discussions. As a philanthropist, Amalie Rothschild was an important donor to the group in the mid-1990s and also helped fund Link, a locally produced arts journal.
Completed in 1974, Nana, Mom, and Me was Amalie R. Rothschild's fourth film. In it, she explores the difficult issue of competitiveness and rivalry between mothers and daughters, including her own mother's ambivalence toward her early successes as a filmmaker.
Earlier she had produced Woo, Who May Wilson, the story of outsider artist May Wilson, who began a new career as a painter in New York at the age of 60, and a short film about the trial of a member of the Black Panther Party in New York.
"When I first got recognition for May Wilson with an article in the New York Times, people got in touch with her thinking she had made the film," Amalie R. Rothschild recalled. "It made her uncomfortable; she got worried people were giving her credit for something she didn't do, and there was a tension between us because our names were the same.
"I said, 'But you gave me that name!' and she said 'Yes, but we expected you to get married and change your name when you grew up.' They didn't see the women's movement coming when they named me in 1945."
Fortunately, mother and daughter had resolved their differences by the time the film was shot. The documentary ends with the artist lovingly cutting her daughter's hair and giving her a hug and a kiss.
After Nana, Mom, and Me, Amalie R. Rothschild also made It Happens to Us, a film about abortion rights, and Conversations with Willard Van Dyke, about the photographer and first director of the film department at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Her most recent film, Painting the Town: The Illusionistic Murals of Richard Haas, featured the witty, trompe l'oeil murals for which Haas is known.
"In many of my films, I've used looking at an artist's life as a way of exploring social issues," Amalie R. Rothschild said in a telephone interview from New York. "Woo, Who May Wilson was prescient about the emergence of women's issues in the national arena. This was a woman who'd had to pick up and move to New York and have an independent life of her own. So that was how I started making films about women's issues."
Much of the second half of Nana, Mom, and Me deals with the dilemma Amalie Rothschild felt as a result of conflicting demands between her roles as artist, wife and mother, and of her early struggle to overcome her own parents' conventional expectations for her future.
As her work evolved, she devoted more of her energy to sculpture but remained an artist who was comfortable working in many media, including painting, printmaking and drawing. For many years, she maintained a large and active studio beside her house in Pikesville.
In her last years, as Rothschild's health declined as a result of her struggle with cancer, she produced fewer works. Yet as late as 2000, she was still producing colorful mixed media prints in a style that recalled the artist Paul Klee, whose paintings she admired greatly. She also drew inspiration from Greek mythology, from dance and from modern masters such as Georgia O'Keeffe, Alberto Giacometti and David Smith.
The Maryland Documentary Symposium runs tonight through Sunday and will be presented at the Creative Alliance, 413 S. Conkling St. in Highlandtown. There will be a reception tonight at 6, followed by a lecture and screening at 7:30. Tickets for the reception, lecture and screening are $35; tickets for the film and lecture only are $8. Call 410-276-1651 or visit www.creativealliance.org.