Madeline Tourtelot

Madeline Tripp Tourtelot (21 November 1915 – 26 May 2002 )[1] was a wealthy American artist and actress from the Chicago metropolitan area.[1] She became a prominent female figure in the Chicago filmmaking community (collaborating with notable artists such as John Steinbeck, Emilio Fernandez, Harry Partch, and Edward Bland), founded three artist institutions in the Midwestern United States, and is included in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Biography

Born in Oakland, California as Madeline Hanson, Tourtelot moved to Evanston, Illinois as a young child. Growing up within a musical family (her father was a classical pianist) and close proximity to the galleries and museums in Chicago led Tourtelot to pursue post-secondary studies in fine art. She eventually studied at a number of institutions around the Midwestern United States including Smith College,[2] Fish Creek Art Colony (where she studied painting under Vladimir Rousseff),[1] Northwestern University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Design,[2] and the Saugatuck Summer School of Painting.[1] Tourtelot married wealthy Chicago architect Edward Tourtelot in 1935 at the age of 19. The couple had two children: Edward Jr. (1936) and Joan (1938).[2] Tourtelot died on May 26, 2002, after suffering from a stroke in 1984.[2]

Career

Tourtelot's filmmaking career began when she met John Steinbeck and Emilio Fernandez in 1947 while studying painting in Mexico. Steinbeck and Fernandez were working on the film version of Steinbeck's 1947 novel "The Pearl" and invited Tourtelot to help with production. She went on to become a significant contributor to Chicago's art scene and avant-garde filmmaking in the 1950s and 1960s,[1] a member of Cinema 16, an influential membership film society in New York City, and a critic for Films in Review, in which her writing often revealed her own aesthetic preferences. In 1958, she produced Windsong with American composer Harry Partch, the first of six collaborations between the two and the only film in which she acted. Other works include Rhythm on Canvas (1955), Reflections (1955), One by One (1955), The Poets Return (1962), and U.S. Highball (1968).

Prior to working in film, Tourtelot was active in the fields of photography, printmaking and painting. Her painting Escape is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.[3]

In addition to her visual arts practice, Tourtelot founded three art institutions: the Ephraim Art School (1943), the Gallery Studio in Chicago's North Michigan Avenue arts district (1950s), and the Door Harbor School of Art (1965), now known as the Peninsula School of Art, where she was the school's director until 1971.[1]

Major works

Windsong

One of Tourtelot's most well-known works, Windsong, was produced in 1958. The work starred Tourtelot and artist Rudolph Seno, who at the time was a sculpture student at the Art Institute of Chicago's Saugatauk Summer school where Tourtelot was working. The film consists of playful shots that Seno and Tourtelot captured of one another on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan's southeastern shore, along with shots of local botanical speciment and water. The score for Windsong, written by Harry Partch, was inspired by the playful imagery of Tourtelot and Seno, which reminded him of the legend of Apollo and Daphne.[1]

Selected filmography

Film Title year collaborators
Rhythm on Canvas 1955 unknown
Reflections 1955 Edward Bland (music)
One by One 1955 unknown
Windsong 1958 Harry Partch (music), Rudolph Seno (actor)
Music Studio 1958 Harry Partch (music)
Rotate The Body In All Its Planes 1961[4] Harry Partch (music)
The Poets Return 1962[5] unknown
U.S. Highball 1968[6] Harry Partch (music)

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "When Worlds Collide: Harry Partch's Encounters with Film Music on JSTOR". doi:10.5406/musimoviimag.4.1.0009.pdf. JSTOR 10.5406/musimoviimag.4.1.0009.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Tourtelot, Madeline Tripp". Wisconsin Public Television. 2016-08-17. Retrieved 2018-03-01.
  3. ↑ "Escape | The Art Institute of Chicago". www.artic.edu. Retrieved 2018-03-01.
  4. ↑ Partch, Harry; Blackburn, Philip; Tourtelot, Madeline; Partch, . Rotate the body in all its planes, Harry; Partch, . Windsong, Harry; Partch, . Music studio :Harry Partch, Harry; Partch, . U.S. highball, Harry; Forum, American Composers (1995), Four historic art films, Saint Paul, Minn. : Innova, Minnesota Composers Forum, retrieved 2018-03-07
  5. ↑ "Poet's Return (1962)". BFI. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
  6. ↑ "Harry Partch [videorecording] : four films / by Madeline Tourtelot ; with music by Harry Partch. - Princeton University Library Catalog". pulsearch.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
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