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The Hollywood History of Art
Hardcover
Film StudiesArt & Popular Culture
Publisher Price: $79.95
ISBN13: 9780956648785
Publisher: Reel Art Press
Published: Nov 11 2025
Pages: 368
Weight: 4.95
Height: 1.50 Width: 9.90 Depth: 11.70
Language: English
How Hollywood has portrayed the lives of artists, from Kirk Douglas' Vincent van Gogh to Salma Hayek's Frida Kahlo
Ever since the dawn of the sound era, Hollywood and friends have made a series of elaborate feature films about the lives of the great artists: the cast of colorful characters includes Fredric March as Cellini, Charles Laughton as Rembrandt, George Sanders as Gauguin, José Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec, Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh, Charlton Heston as Michelangelo, Mel Ferrer as El Greco--and, more recently, Jeffrey Wright as Jean-Michel Basquiat Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon, Ed Harris as Jackson Pollock, Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo, and many others.
Until now, there has never been a full-length book devoted to the fascinating story of artists and Hollywood. Based on many years of archive research and interviews with participants, The Hollywood History of Art will appeal to museum and gallerygoers, film buffs, art fans and of course those with fond memories of Kirk Douglas being attacked by crows, Charlton Heston swallowing a mouthful of paint as he frescoes the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Ed Harris dripping brushfuls of paint onto a huge canvas, and Salma Hayek being transported at speed in a four-poster bed to a contemporary art gallery in Mexico City.
Christopher Frayling (born 1946) is Professor Emeritus of Cultural History at the RCA and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. His previous books with Reel Art Press include The 2001 File (2015), Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years (2017), Once Upon a Time in the West: Shooting a Masterpiece (2019) and Sergio Leone by Himself (2024).
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