Albert Alcalay: Self Portraits illuminates the extraordinary life and work of abstract expressionist Albert Alcalay. The documentary film examines the nature of Alcalay’s creative process, an artistic language shaped by the Holocaust and the American landscape. Forced into a life of hiding as a Serbian Jew during World War II, Alcalay was eventually captured and sent to a Nazi concentration camp, where he discovered painting. (Alcalay’s book,The Persistence of Hope: A True Story, details his experiences during the Holocaust and his development as an artist.) After the war, he immigrated to the United States, where he lived and taught at Harvard University. The film was produced in 2004 by Rob Eustis, Allen Moore and Rob Tranchin when Alcalay was in his late 80s.

This program is free for Museum members or with Museum admission and is offered in conjunction with the special exhibition Four Winds: The Arts and Letters of Rocky Neck in the 1950s, in which Albert Alcalay is one of the featured artists.

Image courtesy of the Alcalay Family.