Chronicles the life and art of Henri Matisse (1869-1954), the French painter whose innovative style and use of color changed the face of 20th-century art. An Essay on Matisse was nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary short category. It was originally broadcast on PBS.

An exploration of painter Mark Rothko, best known for imposing canvasses that eschew representation to express fundamental human emotions through pure color.

Hammer’s 2003 film Resisting Paradise, which deals with the concept of art as a tool of political resistance, was especially fascinating to me. Hammer, who was doing a painting residency in Cassis, France, when war broke out in Kosovo, found herself questioning the validity of art in the face of political conflict and unrest. She began exploring the history of the French Resistance in Cassis, and used that as a chance to reflect on how Cassis’ artistic community, both those who were threatened by the Nazi occupation of France and those who were able to remain relatively neutral, reacted to the atrocities of the Second World War.