Guild Hall Names Award Recipients
Guild Hall has announced that this year's Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Awards will be presented to Jane Freilicher for visual arts, Peter Stone for literary arts, and Alan J. Pakula for performing arts.
Peter Jennings, anchor and senior editor of ABC News, will be the master of ceremonies at a presentation dinner on Dec. 3 at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Ms. Freilicher, whose house in Water Mill and surrounding ponds and wetlands have been the subject of many of her paintings, has determinedly stuck to figurative painting through many decades when it seemed that all critical attention was focused on abstraction.
Always Starting Anew
She studied with Hans Hofmann but, feeling a closer tie to Matisse and Bonnard, returned to figurative painting as soon as she left his classes. In an interview with ARTnews, Ms. Freilicher said, "While I agree with Constable, who said that painting is but another word for feeling, I prefer that emotion be a kind of unconscious subtext."
"I have a sense of always beginning again with each work," she continued. "You never really have done it, you keep going, and it's always as if you're painting for the first time. At the end of Bonnard's life, a friend asked him how he was, and he said, 'Well, I'm still here with a brush in one hand and a rag in the other.' " Since 1952, when her work was first shown at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, she has had nearly 40 solo exhibits, including a traveling retrospective in 1986.
Peter Stone
Mr. Stone, who was the master of ceremonies for the Lifetime Achievement Awards for many years, now finds himself on the other side of the dais. He is the author of 14 Broadway productions and is the only writer ever to win a Tony, an Oscar, an Edgar, and an Emmy Award.
His musicals "1776," "Woman of the Year," and "The Will Rogers Follies" won Tony Awards. His other Broadway credits include "Grand Hotel," "My One and Only," and "Titanic," which will open next year. "Father Goose" won an Academy Award for best screenplay, "Charade" won him an Edgar, and an episode of the acclaimed TV series "The Defenders" won an Emmy. His other movies include "Sweet Charity," "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3," and "Arabesque." His latest film, "Just Cause" with Sean Connery, was released last year.
Mr. Stone, who has been president of the Dramatists Guild since 1981, has been a full-time resident of Amagansett for 25 years.
Alan J. Pakula
Oscars have also figured in the life of Mr. Pakula, who has a house in East Hampton and who, with his wife, Hannah, is a good friend of Mr. Stone and his wife, Mary. The film director received Academy Award nominations as best director for "All the President's Men," and as best screenwriter for "Sophie's Choice," which was edited in Southampton.
Mr. Pakula began his career as a producer, teaming up with the director Robert Mulligan to create the film "Fear Strikes Out" in 1957. The pair went on to make six more films, including the classic movie "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Love With the Proper Stranger," "Inside Daisy Clover," and "Up the Down Staircase."
He made his directorial debut with "The Sterile Cuckoo" and his other movies include "The Parallax View" with Warren Beatty, "Starting Over," and, more recently, "The Pelican Brief," "Consenting Adults," and "Presumed Innocent."
Mr. Pakula lectures on film at universities throughout the country and has served as president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.
Reservations for the awards dinner can be made with Guild Hall. The tickets start at $500.