Past Events

KEN BURNS TO SCREEN THREE DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT WILLIAM SEGAL AT MACON EXHIBIT INAUGURAL

William Segal left Macon, Georgia at age ten, returning with his family to New York. Immensely talented, Segal went on to become a legendary artist and magazine publisher. According to his friend Daniel Hess, "Bill found it difficult to support his family as a painter and took a job in trade publishing. He soon started his own publishing company, which expanded to ten publications by the end of the thirties. He took chances with his publications. American Fabrics was the Fortune magazine of the textiles and garment industry. Gentry was an early avant-garde men's magazine. He ran articles on Zen Buddhism, Eastern art, falconry, modern painting-whatever struck his fancy."

Over the years, Segal hobnobbed with the likes of the Dalai Lama and Tennessee Williams, and practically the entire American literati of the time.

In the 1990s, filmmaker Ken Burns became one of Segal's close friends and collaborators. Burns produced three documentaries about Segal's life and work, "Seeing," "Searching" and "Being."

To inaugurate an exhibit of Segal's paintings and ephemera at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, Georgoa, Burns will host a screening of the documentaries, and conduct a question and answer session, "An Afternoon with Ken Burns," Saturday, October 3, starting at 2 pm. The William Segal Exhibit continues at the Museum of Arts and Sciences for three months following the kickoff event. [Alabama version only: Burns' documentaries were screened this past March at the Birmingham Museum of Art.]

For interviews with Ken Burns or with Segal's widow Marielle Bancou-Segal, or to answer specific questions, contact Amanda J. Respress, public relations director, Museum of Arts and Sciences, 4182 Forsyth Road, Macon, GA 31210, telephone 478-477-3232, or email arespess@masmacon.com General information about Segal and the exhibit are available at the museum website,www.masmacon.com