The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree with this latest film from Exhibition on Screen, the long-running series of gallery films: it follows releases from the company that draw on horticulture and impressionism such as Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse and I, Claude Monet. This time the focus is on US artists such as Mary Cassatt, Theodore Robinson and Willard Metcalf.
This is relatively unploughed territory, and director Phil Grabsky documents it with his customary meticulous care (as well as roping in Gillian Anderson to provide a studious voiceover). There is a gallery element to the film – the Florence Griswold Museum, located at the former boarding house in Connecticut where the artists congregated – which makes for a interesting context. But these painters are perhaps not the artworld giants that previous films in the series have focused on; hence this is a pleasant, but not essential, watch.
