Yvonne & Rudy

YVONNE & RUDY were amongst the most interesting artist couples in New York and Maine in the last century. They were an essential part of an artist community Maine had ever seen.  You can support the completion of their film by going to this site and donating:  https://bit.ly/4jwIiDP

It all started when…

… Rudy Burckhardt moved to New York in 1935 from Basel, Switzerland, encouraged by his close friend Edwin Denby, future dance critic of the New York Times. Their neighbor across the hall had just given up commercial art to follow his passion. But he was virtually starving, unable to make rent or even buy food. So Edwin and Rudy began shoving money under his door. When they were discovered, he invited them in to select a few drawings and a painting in return. Turned out he was none other than Willem de Kooning!

YVONNE & RUDY is the 23rd film in the Emmy-nominated series Maine Masters produced by Richard Kane, Robert Shetterly, and Melody Lewis-Kane under the aegis of the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA). The series includes such acclaimed artist portraits as Imber's Left Hand, I Know a Man ... Ashley Bryan, and Truth Tellers. The latter film focusing on Shetterly’s Americans Who Tell the Truth paintings has been broadcast more than 600 times on PBS affiliates. Through a grant from the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation, writer/poet/critic Carl Little has joined the UMVA Maine Masters team to help produce this film.

With most of Yvonne & Rudy shot, the production team is now raising the funds to finance editing and distribution. We hope to premiere the film at the opening of an exhibit of works by Yvonne Jacquette, Rudy Burckhardt, and Edwin Denby at the Colby College Museum of Art in summer 2027. 

Yvonne Jacquette (1934-2023) and Rudy Burckhardt (1914-1999) were a celebrated artist couple who fled New York City summers in the 1960s to find relief in Maine. They joined the likes of Alex Katz, Red Grooms, Mimi Gross, Lois Dodd, Neil Welliver, and Edwin Denby, fellow big city escapees who found a muse in Maine. That seasonal community included their children who gained their own fame, among them, curator/poet/art author Vincent Katz, painter Tom Burckhardt, and actor Titus Welliver. Most of these artists and their offspring appear in Red Grooms’ 1964 portrait painting Slab City Rendezvous, which serves to introduce this incredibly creative Maine community in Yvonne & Rudy.

Jacquette was a contemporary American painter and printmaker, celebrated for her aerial landscapes. Inspired by the view from her window during a flight to San Diego in 1969, she began flying commercial airlines in order to sketch and study landscapes and cloud formations. She painted night views of New York City, Hong Kong and other cities. She also painted from the World Trade Center and above Times Square. The Maine landscape inspired aerial views of islands and such industrial sites as the Dragon Cement Company and the Maine Yankee Nuclear Plant. Her later Nocturnes based on flights over Maine at night gained critical notice. Many prestigious museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Whitney, own her work. Among the film’s special features is footage of Jacquette sketching with pastels while on a flight over Isle au Haut. 

Jacquette married Burckhardt in 1964. Burckhardt's photographs from high elevations feature iconic New York City sites and views, including the Flatiron Building, the Brooklyn waterfront, and the water towers of Chelsea rooftops. Critics have compared his films to those of such European avant-garde filmmakers as Jean Renoir, Roberto Rossellini, and Jean-Luc Godard. The cast for Burckhardt's Maine films included many of his artist friends. Of special interest in Yvonne & Rudy is his film Lurk, a 1965 short comedy take-off on Frankenstein. The film occupies a unique place in underground cinema, blending a melodramatic narrative (Denby plays the mad scientist) with a documentary aesthetic.

Yvonne & Rudy features interviews with curator Susan Danly, poet Vincent Katz, and critics Carl Little and John Yau. Artists interviewed include Alex Katz, Lois Dodd, Katherine Bradford, Tom Burckhardt, Mimi Gross, Jacob Burckhardt, Titus Welliver, and Jacquette. 

Maine Paintings