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Matinee: 'Bea Nettles'
4 November 2023
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 525th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Bea Nettles.
Last night the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum inducted four women. Joining Nan Goldin, Vivian Maier and Matika Wilbur was Bea Nettles. We dug up this 2019 profile of Nettles after she won the Lifetime ACE award.
The citation reads:
For her technically innovative, transformative and experimental work that has extensively contributed to the history of photography, for her international reputation and huge impact on generations of students at the University of Illinois and for making an immeasurable contribution to the artistic community of Champaign County while remaining a national treasure.
She has also taught at the Rochester Institute of Technology until 1984. In Illinois, she ran the photography program for 15 years after qualifying it for a BFA degree.
In this 4:28 video, she does all the talking and it's refreshingly straight-forward, plain talk.
She thinks it's important for young people entering the field to realize that a lot of magic has already been performed and their task is to improve on it.
"So what? You can do a cyanotype," she illustrates the concept. "You've got to say something with it. There's got to be a reason that you're doing it."
And then, as Stella Adler used to say, do it like Hercules.