Anne Packard: An Artist’s Resolve

Documentary: Directed by Arthur Egeli (Provincetown, MA) Audience Award : Best Documentary Feature, Provincetown International Film Festival. A single mother of five becomes one of the greatest artists of her generation. Anne is 92 years old and today will be the last day she visits the gallery that helped make her famous. At 41, Anne’s husband left her with five small children for a 19-year-old, and her parents’ response was, “You made your bed, Anne, now lie in it”…leaving her the sole provider for her young family. As a woman in the 1970s, galleries and artists would not take her seriously. They scoffed when she hung her small paintings on the fence in front of her house. Nevertheless, she priced them between $5 and $15 on the honor system, and they sold, and sold…and sold. Galleries called and collectors swarmed to her work. Soon, she and her three daughters owned their own gallery, and her paintings were selling for thousands of dollars. Today, Anne has to give up that gallery, but she has not given up her will to create. FILMMAKER Q&A TO FOLLOW. Runtime: 01:13:28, Founders Theatre