Painters Painting

Though director Emile de Antonio was best known for his caustic political documentaries, he was also deeply immersed in the art world, a connection that led him to make the definitive look at the New York School of painters from 1940 to 1970. Having forged friendships with many of the leading artists of the midcentury, de Antonio interviews them in their studios, capturing the cutting edge of movements ranging from abstract expressionism to hard edge and color field to pop art. Among the featured painters are Robert Rauschenberg, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Hans Hofmann, Jules Olitski, Philip Pavia, Larry Poons, Robert Motherwell, Kenneth Noland, and Andy Warhol, who famously said, “Everything I learned about painting, I learned from De.”