Sidney Peterson (November 15, 1905,
Oakland, California – April 24, 2000,
New York City) was an American writer,
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
, and
avant-garde filmmaker. He attended
UC Berkeley, worked as a newspaper
reporter
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
in
Monterey, and spent time as a practicing
painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
and
sculptor in
France in the 1920s and 1930s. After
World War II, Peterson founded Workshop 20 at the
California School of Fine Arts (renamed the
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...
), initiating filmmaking courses at the school.
Between 1947 and 1950 the workshop produced five films under Peterson's guidance that were influential on the burgeoning American avant-garde cinema, and significant artifacts of the
San Francisco Renaissance. In the years that followed, Peterson worked as a consultant for the
Museum of Modern Art, made a series of
documentary films, penned a novel (''A Fly in the Pigment'', 1961) and a memoir (''The Dark of the Screen'', 1980), and worked at
Walt Disney Productions as a scriptwriter and storyboard artist on the never completed sequel to ''
Fantasia
Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcore ...
''.
He died in New York City at the age of 94. Peterson's films are distributed by
Canyon Cinema in San Francisco and
The Film Makers Cooperative
The Film-Makers' Cooperative a.k.a. legal name The New American Cinema Group, Inc. is an artist-run, non-profit organization incorporated in July 1961 in New York City by Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, Stan Brakhage, Lionel Rogosin, Gregory Markopoul ...
in New York City.
A 2007 comic strip by Dave Kiersh in Syncopated Volume 3 (''Syncopated Comics'', 2007) tells of his relationship with Peterson, who was a friend of Kiersh's grandmother.
On December 30, 2009, the
Library of Congress named Peterson's ''The Lead Shoes'' (1949) to the
National Film Registry.
Selected filmography
*''The Potted Psalm'' (1946) with
James Broughton
James Broughton (November 10, 1913 – May 17, 1999) was an American poet and poetic filmmaker. He was part of the San Francisco Renaissance, a precursor to the Beat poets. He was an early bard of the Radical Faeries, as well as a member of ...
*''Horror Dream'' (1947)
*''The Cage'' (1947)
*''The Petrified Dog'' (1948)
*''Clinic of Stumble'' (1948)
*''Mr. Frenhofer and the Minotaur'' (1949)
*''
The Lead Shoes
''The Lead Shoes'' is a 1949 experimental film directed by Sidney Peterson at Workshop 20 at the San Francisco Art Institute. The film was made using distorting lenses. The film is a 17-minute black and white short.
In 2009, the film was sel ...
'' (1949)
*''Architectural Millinery'' (1954)
*''Man in a Bubble'' (1981)
References
External links
Canyon Cinema CooperativeThe Film-makers' Cooperative
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peterson, Sidney
American experimental filmmakers
1905 births
2000 deaths
Writers from New York City
University of California, Berkeley alumni
San Francisco Art Institute faculty
Film directors from New York City