Mark Twain is thought to have quipped, "If Washington should rise from the dead and not resemble the Stuart portrait, he would be judged an imposter." Such is the legacy of the so-called Athenaeum portrait...

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Recent Reviews

The film just got a great review in the Providence Journal-Bulletin:

Review: ‘First Face’ documentary made by R.I. filmmakers

01:00 AM EST on Friday, February 18, 2011

By Michael Janusonis

Ask most Americans who Gilbert Stuart is and you’ll get the kind of blank stare filmmakers Jim Wolpaw and Steve Gentile got when they asked passersby on Boston Common to identify him.

And yet most of them carry around a copy of a painting by the Rhode Island-born artist and put it to use every day...

[READ MORE]

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And another great review, in "Focus", the newsletter of MassArt, where producer and co-director Steve Gentile teaches:

Feature: First Face

...With its sharp humor and animations, the documentary stands out from most featured on PBS.  "I love biographies, but I like to do them a bit more unconventionally than what is normally seen," Steve says of the program. "If I could sum it up, the main difference [in our film] is that Jim and I never presume a viewer's interest. In general, we like employing humor to get audiences on board..."

[READ MORE]

Produced in Association with:

and

Funded by:

the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
a private corporation funded by the American people.

With additional funding by:

RI Council for the Humanities

RI State Council
on the Arts