Suzan Lee Pitt (July 11, 1943 – June 16, 2019) was an American film animator and

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

, whose surreal,

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betw ...

animated film Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

s and paintings have been acclaimed and exhibited worldwide.

Early life

Pitt was born in

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

, and studied painting at the

Cranbrook Academy of Art The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cra ...

, graduating with a BFA in 1965. In the late 1960s, based in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, Pitt began experimenting with cutout animation using an 8 mm

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...

, completing her first short film ''Bowl, Garden, Theatre, Marble Game'' in 1970.

Animation

Her best-known film, ''

Asparagus Asparagus, or garden asparagus, folk name sparrow grass, scientific name ''Asparagus officinalis'', is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus '' Asparagus''. Its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. It was once classified ...

'',Pioneers in film: the art-house films that shaped popular culture, The Independent
/ref> took four years to make, and debuted as part of an installation at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

in 1979. The installation included the movie-theater set piece used in the film, which held an audience of 15 people. ''Asparagus'' also screened with

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Be ...

's ''

Eraserhead ''Eraserhead'' is a 1977 American surrealist horror film written, directed, produced, and edited by David Lynch. Lynch also created its score and sound design, which included pieces by a variety of other musicians. Shot in black and white, it ...

'' for two years on the

midnight movie The term midnight movie is rooted in the practice that emerged in the 1950s of local television stations around the United States airing low-budget genre films as late-night programming, often with a host delivering ironic asides. As a cinematic ...

circuit. Throughout the 1980s Pitt designed animated projections for various theatrical projects, in particular two groundbreaking

operas Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...

in Germany: ''

The Magic Flute ''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a '' Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that inc ...

'' for the

Staatstheater Wiesbaden The Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden ('Hessian State Theatre Wiesbaden') is a German theatre located in Wiesbaden, in the German state Hesse. The company produces operas, plays, ballets, musicals and concerts on four stages. Known also a ...

in 1983 and '' The Damnation of Faust'' for the

Staatsoper Hamburg The Hamburg State Opera (in German: Staatsoper Hamburg) is a German opera company based in Hamburg. Its theatre is near the square of Gänsemarkt. Since 2015, the current ''Intendant'' of the company is Georges Delnon, and the current ''Genera ...

in 1988. In addition, she created large-scale

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradi ...

shows, including a collaboration with John Cage at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1976 and at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in 1980. Pitt's honors include a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 2000, a

Creative Capital Creative Capital is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in New York City that supports artists across the United States through funding, counsel, gatherings, and career development services. Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has commi ...

Moving Image Award in 2005, a

Rockefeller Fellowship The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carne ...

, and three production grants from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federa ...

. She received a retrospective screening at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

in 2017, and a Lifetime Achievement Award at

Animafest Zagreb World Festival of Animated Film Zagreb ( hr, Svjetski festival animiranog filma), also known as Animafest Zagreb, is a film festival entirely dedicated to animated film held annually in Zagreb, Croatia. Initiated by the International Animated Fi ...

in 2019.

Fashion

In 1984 and again in 2016, Pitt created editions of hand-painted coats, sold through designer

Patricia Field Patricia Field (born February 12, 1942) is an American costume designer, stylist and fashion designer. Early life Field was born in 1942 in New York City to an Armenian father and a Greek mother, who emigrated from Plomari, Lesbos, Greece. F ...

. Pitt also created silk-screen T-shirts printed with an original design, sold through WilliWear Productions by

Willi Smith Willi Donnell Smith (February 29, 1948 – April 17, 1987) was an American fashion designer. At the time of his death, Smith was regarded as one of the most successful African-American designers in the fashion industry. His company, WilliWe ...

in 1984.

Teaching

Pitt was an associate professor at the

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only building designed primarily by Le Corbusier in the United States—he contributed to the design of the United Nations Secretariat Building—a ...

at Harvard from 1988 through the early 1990s. Starting in 1998, she taught in the Experimental Animation program at the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of bo ...

for nearly twenty years, living in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

and

Taos Taos or TAOS may refer to: Places * Taos, Missouri, a city in Cole County, Missouri, United States * Taos County, New Mexico, United States ** Taos, New Mexico, a city, the county seat of Taos County, New Mexico *** Taos art colony, an art col ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...

Preservation

The

Academy Film Archive The Academy Film Archive is part of the Academy Foundation, established in 1944 with the purpose of organizing and overseeing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ educational and cultural activities, including the preservation of m ...

has preserved several of Pitt's films, including ''Joy Street'', ''Asparagus'', ''Whitney Commercial'', ''Crocus'', and ''Bowl, Garden, Theatre, Marble Game''.

Filmography

*''Bowl, Garden, Theatre, Marble Game'' – 1970 (16mm, color, 7 min.) *''Crocus'' – 1971 (16mm, color, 7 min.) *''A City Trip'' – 1972 (16mm, color, 3 min.) *''Cels'' – 1972 (16mm, color, 6 min.) *''Whitney Commercial'' – 1973 (16mm, color, 3 min.) *''Jefferson Circus Songs'' – 1973 (16mm, color, 16 min.) *''

'' – 1979 (35mm, color, 18 min.) *''

Joy Street ''Joy Street'' is a 1929 American film directed by Raymond Cannon and starring Lois Moran, Nick Stuart and Rex Bell.Kohner p.347 It was made by the Fox Film Corporation using the studio's Movietone system to record music and sound effects. Ca ...

'' – 1995 (35mm, color, 24 min.) *''El Doctor'' – 2006 (35mm, color, 23 min.) *''Visitation'' – 2011 (digital (from 16mm), b/w, 8 min 50 seconds.) *''Pinball'' – 2013 (digital, color, 7 min.)

References

External links

Suzan Pitt official siteSuzan Pitt on Vimeo
*
Experimental Animation FacultyCurator's NotesChicago ReaderInterview, Anima anime: Suzan Pitt’s Wild Psyches, British Film Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pitt, Suzan 1943 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists American animators American animated film directors American experimental filmmakers American surrealist artists American women experimental filmmakers American women painters Artists from Kansas City, Missouri California Institute of the Arts faculty Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni Harvard University faculty Surrealist filmmakers American women animators Women surrealist artists American women academics