(Filmmaker in person)

Who knew? Talk about an unsung artist! Decades before the advent of Ed Ruscha and David Hockney, Edward Biberman was the first and foremost delineator of Southern California’s urban landscape in the medium of painting. Brother of writer-producer Herbert, great heart and one of the Hollywood Ten, Edward’s talent led him on an artistic odyssey from Paris and Berlin in the 20s, to New York, New Mexico, and then to the “cultural wasteland” of 1930s Los Angeles. Portrait painter to the stars (Joan Crawford and Lena Horne among them), muralist in the time of Rivera, friend or acquaintance of Paul Robeson, Frida Kahlo, Isamu Noguchi, Alexander Calder, Georgia O’Keefe, Martha Graham and Dashiell Hammett, Biberman was also a social activist in concert with the love of his life, Sonia Dahl- Biberman, who, along with her husband’s paintings, invests this wonderful film with its vibrant spirit.

(2007, 83 min.) – G.R.