Sara Kathryn Arledge’s Films and Art

To mark the publication of the first book on the painter and experimental filmmaker Sara Kathryn Arledge (1911–1998), Serene for the Moment: Sara Kathryn Arledge, we present a selection of digital copies of hand-painted glass transparencies she made while teaching at California College of Arts and Crafts. Curator Terry Cannon described them as “akin to viewing a shimmering stained-glass window.” As they were difficult to present in public venues, Arledge also documented them in several of her films, including Interior Gardens 11. Her first film, Introspection, an early dance film, was shown in San Francisco’s Art in Cinema series in 1947. The Armory exhibition from which the book arose described Arledge as “an under-recognized painter and innovator of mid-20th century experimental cinema” and “a prolific artist who emphasized the eerie in the mundane and the disorienting in the beautiful. Arledge worked at the margins of art history, shaping her practice with idiosyncratic personal myth.” Presented in memory of Terry Cannon (1953–2020), who arranged for Arledge’s paper, glass transparency, and film collection to come to BAMPFA. The Film Library and Study Center recently received a grant from California Revealed to digitize the paper collection.

A selection of glass slide transparencies
US, 1947–50
c. 10 mins
Digital streaming
Source: BAMPFA

Recorded biographical presentation on Arledge by Terry Cannon
Recorded June 30, 2018 at BAMPFA 
c. 10 mins 
Digital streaming
Source: BAMPFA 

Interior Garden 11
US, 1978
8 mins
Color
16mm, Digital streaming 

Introspection
US, 1941–47
7 mins
Color
16mm, Digital streaming

What Is a Man? 
US, 1958
10 mins
Color
16mm, Digital streaming
Source: BAMPFA Collection