Overview
Contains material related to the artist and animator Suzan Pitt (1943-2019).
Dates
- Creation: circa 1972-1995
Creator
- Pitt, Suzan (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to the paper portion of this collection. Collection is open for research. The Harvard Film Archive's manuscript collections and paper-based materials are accessed through the Houghton Library Reading Room. This material is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Researchers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine retrieval policies and times.
Access to audiovisual material is by appointment only. Applications to consult this material should be directed to the staff of the Harvard Film Archive. Film prints are made accessible in close consultation with HFA staff. Although materials do not circulate for individual use, students, filmmakers, artists, and researchers are encouraged to use the collections on-site.
Conditions Governing Use
Reproduction and/or publication of materials subject to copyright requires written permission from a) the copyright owner, their heirs or assigns and from b) the Harvard Film Archive, owner of the original material.
Extent
2 linear feet (7 boxes)81 items (approximately 81 film and video items)
The manuscript portion of the collection includes a small amount of production material from Suzan Pitt’s films, including a shooting log, storyboards, and photographs related to Asparagus and proposals for a feature-length animated film titled Black Snow. The collection also includes exhibition and promotional material related to screenings of Pitt’s works in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as extensive material related to her teaching at Harvard.
The collection also contains video material, 16mm and 35mm projection prints, work-prints, outtakes, original camera negatives and magnetic and optical tracks of her film work from the 1970s to the 1990s, including material for her films, Asparagus, Bowl Theater Marble Game, Crocus, and Joy Street. The Harvard Film Archive's film and video holdings for Pitt can be searched in Harvard’s library catalog using this query.
Biographical / Historical
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Suzan Pitt (1943-2019) graduated from Cranbrook Academy of Art with a BFA in painting. She began creating animated films in the late 1960s, working with a dream-like and intensely handcrafted style. forged a dream-like and intensely handcrafted film animation. Her breakthrough film Asparagus (1979) was selected to accompany David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) on its extended, ultimately almost two-year, run of midnight screenings. Asparagus introduced audiences to the strange, surrealist-inflected and psycho-sexually charged oneircism that would remain a constant throughout Pitt’s work, while showcasing her consummate artistry and skill with variegated animation techniques—from multi-layered cell painting to claymation, a bold technical experimentation that also distinguishes later films such as Joy Street (1995) and El Doctor (2006).
In the 1980s, Pitt created animated film projections for two major operas staged in Germany: The Magic Flute at the State Opera of Wiesbaden and The Damnation of Faust at the Hamburg State Opera. During the same period, she was also active as a member of the Colab artists’ group in New York City.
A long-time and beloved member of the legendary CalArts faculty, Pitt was renowned as a teacher and mentor. Before moving to California Pitt also taught within Harvard’s Visual and Environmental Studies Department (now Art, Film, and Visual Studies). It was, in fact, in the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts that she realized one of her most ambitious films, Joy Street, working with then Harvard student Helen Hill as one of her assistants.
(Adapted from Haden Guest’s notes for the Harvard Film Archive collection page)
Arrangement
The collection has been arranged into the following series: I. Film productions; II. Exhibition and promotional material; III. Teaching material; and IV. Miscellaneous papers.
Physical Location
Harvard Depository
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Suzan Pitt, 2012-2013.
Processing Information
Processed by Mark Johnson, with assistance from Max Goldberg, December 2023.
Creator
- Pitt, Suzan (Person)
- Title
- Pitt, Suzan. Suzan Pitt films and papers (hfa00012): Guide
- Status
- completed
- Author
- Harvard Film Archive, Harvard Library
- Date
- December 2023
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- eng
- EAD ID
- hfa00012
Repository Details
Part of the Harvard Film Archive, Harvard Library, Harvard University Repository
The Harvard Film Archive is one of the largest university-based motion picture collections in the United States, with a collection of 40,000 audio visual items, a growing number of manuscript collections, and nearly one million still photographs, posters, and other promotional materials from around the world and from almost every period in film history. The HFA's collection of paper materials, including the documentation of individual filmmakers as well as promotional materials such as posters, film stills, and ephemera are accessible to Harvard affiliates as well as to outside researchers.
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