AMALIE R. ROTHSCHILD
filmmaker and photographer

Biography

135 Hudson Street #1F New York, NY 10013
Via Carrand 22 50133 Florence, Italy - Fax: 39-055-552-8456
E-mail: a.rothschild@agora.it


Amalie R. Rothschild has a multi-faceted background in Graphic Design, Photography, Computer Imaging, Motion Picture and Video Production. She has a BFA (1967) in Graphic Design from Rhode Island School of Design where she spent her senior year on their European Honors Program in Rome, Itay. She studied photography with Harry Callahan, and has an MFA (1969) in Film Production from New York University’s Institute of Film and Television where she also studied photography with Paul Caponigro. From 1968 to 1974 she worked extensively as a free-lance photographer in the music field, her photographs appearing in The New York Times, Newsweek, Time-Life Books, Life Magazine, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, After Dark and many other publications. From 1969 to 1971 she worked with the Joshua Light Show at the Fillmore East Theater in New York producing special effects photography, slides, graphics, films and film loops used during performances and was considered the theater’s unofficial house photographer. She had unlimited access onstage and backstage to all the happenings at the Fillmore East, and was also on staff at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. During that period she photographed most of the major rock music events on the East Coast including the 1969 Newport Festival, Tanglewood 1969 & 1970, The Who’s 1969 US premiere of their rock opera Tommy, the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden in November 1969, Bob Dylan’s 1974 tour, and, in England, the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival. Rolling Stone featured one of her photographs of Bob Dylan on the cover of Issue 43. Bobbs Merrill devoted 30 pages to her work in their 1972 book The Photography of Rock. She was one of the two photographers for the 1987 Prentice Hall book The Food Lovers Guide to the Real New York. A selection of her work is in the Abbeville Press book Radical Rags (1990), Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out (Doubleday, 1992), Cherokee Mist: The Lost Writings of Jimi Hendrix (HarperCollins, 1993), Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead’s American Adventure (Clarkson Potter, 1998), Dylan (Metro Books, 1998), Woodstock: An Inside Look at the Movie that Shook Up the World and Defined a Generation (1999, Michael Wiese Prod), A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead (Broadway Books/Random House, 2002), Jimi Hendrix–Musician (Backbeat Books, UK, 2004), Classic Hendrix (Genesis Publications, 2004), Grateful Dead Gear (Backbeat Books U.S., 2006) and Echoes: The Complete History of Pink Floyd (Mind Head Publishing, UK, 2007) among many others. Since 1994 the Corbis/Bettmann Archive represents and licenses her photographs for editorial use. In 1997 she also joined the Star File Photo Agency. In 1999 Acid Test Productions/Thunder’s Mouth Press published a hardcover monograph of her photographs, Live at the Fillmore East: A Photographic Memoir. In 2006 it went into a sixth softcover printing.

A skilled and veteran filmmaker, she has been producing and directing documentaries since 1969 with special emphasis on films about social issues as revealed through the lives of people in the arts. Her film PAINTING THE TOWN: The Illusionistic Murals of Richard Haas (1990) is about the architectural trompe l’oeil mural artist whose witty work is transforming the American urban landscape. It premiered at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival and screened in the New Directors/New Films Series co-sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. It won a Golden Gate Award at the 1990 San Francisco International Film Festival, a CINE Golden Eagle, a Blue Ribbon and the “Emily” Best of Festival Award at the 1990 American Film and Video Festival, and the 2nd Award at Media Save Art at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome in 1991. Its PBS broadcast was in 1991. In both 1990 and 1992 it was shown for a month on all long-haul flights to Hong Kong by Cathay Pacific Airlines, and in 1993 was licensed by British Airways. In 1998 it was acquired by RAISAT in Italy. Her film CONVERSATIONS WITH WILLARD VAN DYKE, about the photographer (co-founder of Group f/64), filmmaker (The City, Valley Town) and first director of the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art, won the BEST in Fine Arts and the BRONZE Award at the 1981 San Francisco International Film Festival and was broadcast by the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corp., TV New Zealand, WNET Channel 13, NDR German TV and RAISAT. It is distributed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. All of her films, including others like WOO WHO? MAY WILSON (1969), IT HAPPENS TO US (1972), and NANA, MOM AND ME (1974), have been shown throughout the world in film festivals such as: London, Edinburgh, Nyon, Rotterdam, New Delhi, Sydney, Wellington, Tampere, Pesaro, Biografilm Festival in Bologna, Italy and the Festival dei Popoli in Florence, Italy, and have been showcased in Museums across the United States including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Smithsonian Institution, the Chicago Art Institute, St. Louis Museum, Walker Art Center, High Museum in Atlanta, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Corcoran Gallery, Baltimore Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum, Pacific Film Archive and the National Gallery of Art, among many others.

One of the original founders in 1971 of New Day Films, the pioneering self-distribution cooperative still going strong, she has received many production grants including the American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker grant (1973); National Endowment for the Arts 1977, 1978, 1980, 1985, 1987; New York State Council on the Arts 1978, 1987; Ohio Joint Program in the Arts and Humanities 1985; Pinewood Foundation 1978; and John Hay Whitney 1978, 1980. From 1976-78 she taught film production at New York University, and in 1977 she was invited by Margaret Mead to lecture and show her film NANA, MOM AND ME at the Kin and Communities Symposium at the Smithsonian Institution.

She lectures and shows her films frequently at museums, libraries, schools, colleges and universities. Between 1982 and 1987 she did programs under the auspices of the U.S. Information Service in New Zealand, Turkey, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China. She is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who of American Women, Who’s Who in the East, and Who’s Who in Entertainment. In addition, she speaks Italian fluently and since 1985 divides her time between New York and Italy where she is developing new projects. In 2002, after 20 years in Rome, she moved to Florence and has, currently, in the works: a feature length film based on her book, a video documentary on the cult of the olive and olive oil production, and on-going digital photography creation and experimentation with Adobe Photoshop and other programs on the Macintosh computer platform, in addition to preparing exhibitions and printing her photographs.

She had her first solo exhibition of her rock music pictures from June 18 to August 10, 1997 at the SoHo Triad Fine Arts Gallery in New York City. Her second show was from April 18 to May 17, 1998 at the Gomez Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland, and her third exhibition was from February 8 to May 12, 1999 in the corporate headquarters gallery of the music television cable channel VH1 Music First in the Viacom Building in NYC. She had a photograph in the International Center for Photography’s July 1999 Celebrity Auction; a selection of her work hangs in Hard Rock Cafes in NYC, St. Louis and Rome, Italy; in July 2000 her photograph of Tina Turner and Janis Joplin singing together was given as a gift to President Clinton and displayed in the Music Room at the White House. It is also in the private collection of Lenny Kravitz, John Sykes, Dr. Jonathan Samet and many others. Eleven of her pictures are featured in the permanent collection of the Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle. Two photographs were in the RockX-Posed Tour of The Kodak Rock Photography Collection which toured the U.S. in 2003. Her work is seen frequently on covers and in the booklets of compact disc reissues by Sony Music, Electra, Columbia, Grateful Dead Merchandising and other record labels and in magazines like Mojo. She is also represented by the Govinda Gallery in Washington, D.C, the David Gallery in Los Angeles, the Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe, the Jack Gallery and the Entertainment Gallery in Las Vegas, and Snap Galleries in Birmingham, England. Solo exhibitions include from April 6 to May 21, 2000 at SoHo Triad Fine Arts, October 7–November 4, 2000 at Gomez, August 3 to September 8, 2001 at Govinda and May 9 –June 23, 2002 at Soho Triad Fine Arts. Soho Triad went out of business in 2003 and she is now represented by the Staley-Wise Gallery in New York City. A selection of her work was in the group show Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era at the Tate Liverpool, U.K. May 27–September 25, 2005 and is in its travelling version in Frankfurt, Germany and Vienna, Austria in 2006, and the Whitney Museum in NYC May through September 2007. Recent exhibitions: one-woman shows at Snap Galleries June 4–July 30, 2005, Studio Art Centers International Gallery, Florence Italy October 6–November 6, 2005 the Tremaine Gallery, Lakeville, CT January 6 to February 2, 2007, and the David Gallery, Los Angeles June 23–August 17, 2007. Group shows: The Official Bob Dylan Exhibition Proud Galleries, London, England 2005, The Sixties–Decade of Change Holden Luntz Gallery, Palm Beach 2005, Pink Floyd: Shine on you Crazy Diamond Redferns Gallery, London, England February–April 2006, Music and Fashion Staley-Wise Gallery, NYC May 18–August 18, 2007.

 

Amalie R. Rothschild Exhibitions & Collections

Solo shows:
June 18 to August 10, 1997, SoHo Triad Fine Arts Gallery, New York, NY
April 18 to May 17, 1998, Gomez Gallery, Baltimore, MD
February 8 to May 12, 1999, VH1 Music First Corporate Headquarters Gallery, New York, NY
April 6 to May 21, 2000, SoHo Triad Fine Arts, New York, NY
October 7 to November 4, 2000, Gomez Gallery, Baltimore, MD
August 3 to September 8, 2001, Govinda Gallery, Washington, DC
May 9 to June 23, 2002, Soho Triad Fine Arts, New York, NY
June 4 to July 30, 2005, Snap Galleries, Birmingham, England
January 6 to February 2, 2007, The Tremaine Gallery, Lakeville, CT
May 31 to July 15, 2007, Palazzo Re Enzo, Museo d’Arte Contemporaneo, Bologna, Italy
June 23 to August 16, 2007, David Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Selected Group Shows:
1999 “New York, New York” Apex Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
1999 “The 60’s” Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY
2002 “La Revolución del Rock & Roll” Fototeca de Cuba, Havana, Cuba
2004 “Icons” Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, NM
2005 “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era” Tate Gallery Liverpool, England
2005 “The Sixties–Decade of Change” Holden Luntz Gallery, Palm Beach, FL
2005 “The Official Bob Dylan Exhibition” Proud Gallery, London, England
2006 “Pink Floyd: Shine on you Crazy Diamond” Redferns Music Picture Gallery, London
2006 “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era” Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt, Germany
2006 “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era” Kunsthalle, Vienna, Austria
2007 “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era” The Whitney Museum, New York, NY
2007 “Music and Fashion” Staley-Wise Gallery, New York, NY

Selected Collections:
Experience Music Project, Seattle, WA
Hard Rock Cafes in New York City, St. Louis, MO and Rome, Italy
Grateful Dead Enterprises, Novato, CA
Bill Graham Presents, San Francisco
Galadrielle Allman, Berkeley, CA
John Sykes, New York, NY
Dr. Jonathan Samet, Baltimore, MD
Dr. Albert Wu, Baltimore, MD
Dr. Howard Levine, Long Island, NY
Gregg Perloff, Oak Creek, CA
Ira Price, Miami, FL
Michael Klenfner, New York, NY
Butch Trucks, Macon, GA
Bill Clinton, Chappaqua, NY
Lenny Kravitz

 

Filmography- Selected screenings & Awards

ONE WOMAN SHOWS:

1972: Film Forum, New York.
1975: CINEPROBE, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
1981: 3 Day Retrospective, Sheldon Film Theater and Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
1989: University of Montana, Bozeman.
2007: Retrospective, Biografilm Festival, Bologna, Italy

 

WOO WHO? MAY WILSON (1969)

1970: C.I.N.E. Eagle Award; Special Events Screening New York Film Festival; Flaherty Film Seminar.
1971: Excerpt broadcast on NBC-TV Special "The New Communicators".
1972: Toronto Film Festival; Film Forum, N.Y.; First International Festival of Women's Films;
Yale University.
1973: "Dateline 13" TV Series, WNET Channel 13, NY; American Cultural Center,
Paris; British Film Institute/National Film Theatre; Annenberg Cinemateque
Walnut Street Theater, Philadelphia.
1975: Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; College Art Association Annual Conference;
American Association of University Women Annual Conference.
1976: First International Women's Film Festival, Tehran, Iran.
1978: Manhattan Cable Televsion; Roxy Theater, San Francisco.
1979: International Festival of Women's Cinema, Florence, Italy.
1983: New Delhi Film Festival, India; Rhode Island School of Design European Honors Program, Rome, Italy.
Museums:
Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of Art; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; Baltimore Museum of Art; St. Louis Museum; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Sheldon Art Gallery, University of Nebraska.

The film is in the collection of over 50 university and public libraries, the United States Information Service, and from 1973 to1986 was distributed in Australia by the Sydney Filmmakers Coop. U.S. distribution is with New Day Films.

 

IT HAPPENS TO US (1971)

Merit Award Winner, 1975 Johns Hopkins University Medical School Human Sexuality Film Festival.

1972: American Film Festival; Tampere Film Festival, Finland; Pesaro; International Film Festival, Italy; First International Festival of Women's Films; Arden House Public Televsion Seminar; Flaherty Film Seminar; Toronto Film Festival; Film Forum, New York; Yale University.
1973: "Dateline 13" TV Series, WNET Channel 13, NY; British Film Institute/National Film Theatre; American Psychiatric Association Annual Convention.
1974: American Sociological Association Annual Convention; Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY.
1975: Excerpted on ABC-TV Wide World Special hosted by David Frost; League of Women Voters Annual Conference.
1978: Cox Network Cable Televsion.

Museums: Museum of Modern Art,NY; Whitney Museum of American Art; Sheldon Art Gallery, Univ. of Nebraska.

The film is in the collection of over 155 hospital, university and public libraries.
From 1974 to 1980 it was distributed by Planned Parenthood of America.
It is in general U.S. distribution through New Day Films.

 

NANA, MOM AND ME (1974)

Francis Scott Key Award, 1975 Baltimore International Film Festival, Baltimore, Maryland.

Home Movie Award for pioneering contribution to autobiographical cinema.
2007 Biografilm Festival, Bologna, Italy

1974: Flaherty Film Seminar; Arden House Public Television Seminar; Women's Interart Center Guest Series.

1975: Nyon International Film Festival, Switzerland; Rotterdam International Film Festival, Holland; Anthropological Cinema Series, American Museum of Natural History.

1976: Edinburgh Film Festival; American Film Institute Theater, Kennedy Center, Washington, DC; Pacific Film Archive; Conference on Visual Anthopology; First International Women's Film Festival, Tehran, Iran; Orson Welles Cinema, Cambridge, MA; American Psychological Association Annual Convention; Ortho-Psychiatric Association Annual Convention; Second International Festival of Women's Films, NY, NY.

1977: WNET-TV Channel 13 Independent Focus Series; Margaret Mead Film Festival; Annenberg Cinemateque; Kin and Communities Symposium, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Pittsburgh Filmmakers Preview Circuit.

1978: Autobiography Conference, Art Gallery of Ontario; Manhattan Cable Television; Second Margaret Mead Film Festival; Women's National Democratic Club Spring Meeting.

1982: Sydney Filmmakers Cooperative, Australia; U.S. Embassy Program, Wellington, New Zealand; North Texas State University; Corpus Christi University.

1983: New Delhi Film Festival, India; Rhode Island School of Design European Honors Program, Rome, Italy.

1984: American Cultural Center, Jakarta, Indonesia; American Embassy Program, Beijing, China.

1985: International Festival of Women's Cinema, Florence, Italy;

1987: Joint Film and Cultural Club Program, Pescara, Italy.

2007: Biografilm Festival, Bologna, Italy

Museums:
Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art; San Francisco Museum of Art; Hirshhorn Museum; Baltimore Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; High Museum, Atlanta; Art Institute of Chicago; Sheldon Art Gallery, University of Nebraska.

The film is in the collection of over 60 university and public libraries, the United States Information Service, and the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art, NY. In the U.S. it is distributed by New Day Films.

 


CONVERSATIONS WITH WILLARD VAN DYKE (1981)

Bronze Award and Best in Fine Arts Category, 1981 San Francisco International Film Festival.
C.I.N.E. Golden Eagle Award, 1981.
Special Merit Award, 1981 Athens International Film Festival, Ohio University.
Cash Award, 1982 Sinking Creek Film Celebration.

1981: American Film Festival; Center Screen, Harvard University; Flaherty Film Seminar; Grierson Film Seminar; University Film and Video Association Annual Conference; New York University Department of Cinema Studies New Directions in Documentary Series; Anthology Film Archives; FILMEX, Los Angeles International Film Exposition; Sheldon Film Theater and Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

1982: Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals, Australia; Wellington Film Festival, New Zealand; U.S. Embassy Program, Wellington, N.Z.; Edinburgh Film Festival; London Film Festival; Festival dei Popoli, Florence, Italy; NuArt Theater, Los Angeles; Cinemateque Quebecoise, Montreal; Rice University, Houston, Texas; Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California; Berlin Film Market.

1983: Australian Broadcasting Corporation; New Zealand Television; Sundance U.S. Film Festival, Park City, Utah; India Government Film Service, Bombay; University of Turkey, Istanbul; University of Izmir, Turkey; University of Turkey, Ankara.

1984: British Broadcasting Corporation; Shanghai Film Studio, China; Beijing Documentary Film Studio; Foreign Languages Institute #1, Beijing; American Cultural Center, Jakarta, Indonesia; American Cultural Center, Hong Kong; Hong Kong University.

1985: America of the New Deal Film Series, Modena, Italy; International Festival of Women's Cinema, Florence.

1987: American Embassy, Beijing, China; Rhode Island School of Design European Honors Program, Rome.

1989: University of Montana, Bozeman.

1990: Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore.

1998: Licensed by RAISAT, Italy

2007: Biografilm Festival, Bologna, Italy

 

Museums:
Museum of Modern Art, NY Special "What's Happening" Premiere program invitational tribute to Willard Van Dyke, March 1981; Whitney Museum; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; St. Louis Museum; Walters Art Gallery; Baltimore Museum of Art; San Antonio Museum; Detroit Museum of Fine Arts; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Hecksher Museum; San Francisco Museum of Art; Northwest Film Study Center, Portland, Oregon.

The film is in the collection of over 50 university and public libraries, and the United States Information Service. It is distributed in the U.K. by the British Film Institute and in the southern hemisphere by the Australian Film Institute. In the United States it is distributed by the Museum of Modern Art Film Circulation Library and New Day Films.


PAINTING THE TOWN: THE ILLUSIONISTIC MURALS OF RICHARD HAAS (1990)

"EMILY" Best in Festival Award and Blue Ribbon in Fine Arts Category,
1990 American Film and Video Festival.
Golden Gate Award, 1990 San Francisco International Film Festival.
C.I.N.E. Golden Eagle Award 1990.
Special Jury Mention (2nd Prize), Media Save Art 1991, Rome, Italy.

1990: Sundance U.S. Film Festival, Park City, Utah; New Directors/New Films, Museum of Modern Art/Film Society of Lincoln Center, NY; National Gallery of Art East Wing Auditorium, Washington, DC; Smithsonian Institution Resident Associates Program; American Academy in Rome; Festival dei Popoli, Florence, Italy; Festival of Films on Art, Montreal Canada; American Film Institute/Los Angeles International Film Festival; Baltimore International Film Festival; International Festival of Women's Cinema, Florence, Italy; Festival of Films on Architecture and Urban Planning (FIFARC), Bordeaux, France; Portland International Film Festival, Oregon; First Internaional Festival of CINE and TV, Santander, Spain; Temple University Abroad, Rome, Italy; Maryland Institute College of Art; Rhode Island School of Design European Honors Program, Rome.
SBS Television, Australia; TV New Zealand.
Shown on all long-haul flights to Hong Kong by Cathay Pacific
Airlines, July 1990.

1991: Second Leningrad (St. Petersburg) International Festival of Non-Feature Films, Russia; International Festival of Films on Architecture and Town-Planning, Lausanne, Switzerland; Festival Internazionale del Film sull'Arte, Asolo, Italy; Israel Educational Television.

Licensed for screening in Club Class by British Airways.

American Public Televsion Broadcast (PBS).

1992: Licensed again by Cathay Pacific Airlines.

1993: Licensed again for screening in Club Class by British Airways.

1998: Licensed by RAISAT, Italy

2007: Biografilm Festival, Bologna, Italy

The film is distributed by Direct Cinema Limited and is in many public and university libraries.

© Copyright Amalie R. Rothschild