FORT LEE MAYOR MARK SOKOLICH talks with movie poster collector, Konstantino Spanodis in his gallery about the Barrymore Film Center’s new exhibt opening night on April 6th at 6:30pm, featuring posters from Konstantino’s prized collection.
The Daily Heller: A Poster Museum Where Movies Began, in New Jersey
Posted in THE DAILY HELLER
by Steven Heller Posted March 14, 2024
During the period just before and after the first World War, Fort Lee, NJ, served as an incubator, home to the first concentration of motion picture studios in the United States. While the stars and studios eventually went West, Fort Lee is where the movies outgrew their roots and emerged as both an art and an industry.
The nonprofit Barrymore Film Center and Museum—the final commission of architect and theater designer Hugh Hardy—opened in Fort Lee in October 2022. Part of the center’s offerings is a special museum devoted, in part, to film posters. I asked the curator of exhibitions, Richard Koszarski, to shine the spotlight on his contribution to preserving and displaying the printed artifacts of the movie world—arguably America’s most beloved industry.
“The Barrymore Film Center essentially functions as a local history museum whose subject is not, say, immigration or the Civil War, but the growth and development of moving pictures. Like other museums and historical sites, it uses its history to look forward, to link the past with the present through such activities as film screenings, museum exhibitions, publications and public events.”
Barrymore Film Center Museum Team - Left to right: Elizabeth Skrabonja, Sylvia Aisenstadt, Dr. Richard Koszarski, Wendell Walker
The Barrymore Film Center is a member of the American Alliance of Museums. The article below was published online on January 22, 2023 regarding the “Power Couple” exhibit.
BFC MUSEUM EXHIBIT 2023
“Power Couple” - Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford in Hollywood
What an incredible Opening Night for the latest exhibit at the Barrymore Film Center Museum on June 10, 2023. Our special guest was Tracey Goessel who introduced the 1924 film, The Thief of Bagdad shown after the exhibit opening. Come and see the new exhibit during operating hours of the BFC. Check our film schedule page for times.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EXHIBIT WILL CLOSE ON JANUARY 28TH.
“I hope the exhibit is a big success. I have never seen a museum exhibit more beautifully staged!”
Tracey Goessel
We are fortunate to have as our guest, Tracey Goessel with us for this special evening. As you will notice in the museum exhibit, the BFC has items from her private collection, including the Pickford-Fairbanks love letters.
Tracey is the founder of the Los Angeles based Film Preservation Society and is on the board of the San Francisco Film Silent Film Festival. She is a major collector of items from the silent film era, has published many articles as well as a biography on Douglas Fairbanks.
She will be with us during the evening and will introduce The Thief of Bagdad silent film.
This Hollywood Power Couple Got Their Start in Fort Lee
Jim Beckerman - NORTHJERSEY.COM - 6/6/23
“Is it love that makes the world go round? Or is it money? Either way, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Hollywood superstars who were also shrewd producers and devoted soul mates, set it spinning.
They were the first of that now-familiar species: the Power Couple.
Before Ben Affleck and J-Lo, before Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Doug and Mary were the great celebrity twosome. Their 1919 wedding was world news. Their mansion, Pickfair, was Hollywood's most sought-after invitation. And their company, United Artists, founded with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, is still around.
"Not only were they the quintessential Hollywood couple, they were also the people who are responsible, even today, for a lot of what you see on the big screen," said Nelson Page, executive director of the Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee.
A new exhibit, "Power Couple, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford in Hollywood," opening June 10 and running through December, will explore their lasting mystique, as well as their New Jersey roots. Both started their careers in the fledgling studios of Fort Lee.”
BFC INAUGURAL EXHIBIT OPENED OCTOBER 2022
BFC INAUGURAL MUSEUM EXHIBIT
“THE BARRYMORES: The Royal Family of Fort Lee”
The Barrymore Film Center’s first floor museum gallery will host a series of innovative exhibits documenting the art and industry of movies in America--a story in which Fort Lee has played a significant role right from the beginning.
Logically enough, the opening show focuses on the Barrymores, America’s most prominent theatrical family. Maurice Barrymore was the patriarch, a celebrated Victorian matinee idol and the great-grandfather of their current generation’s most celebrated star, Drew Barrymore. Maurice lived in the Coytesville section for a time, and it was in Fort Lee that John Barrymore, the youngest of Maurice’s three children, first appeared on any public stage—at a fund-raiser for the local fire company.
Our exhibit focuses on these children, John, Ethel and Lionel, whose careers stretched from Broadway to Hollywood, and who shot many of their earliest films within walking distance of what today is the new Barrymore Film Center. The story of their fabulous career is told through stills and posters, film clips, theatrical props, and rare original artworks.
The Barrymores: The Royal Family of Fort Lee was always designed to be the new facility’s inaugural exhibit, and has been developed by our museum curator, Dr. Richard Koszarski. Images and artifacts have come from Fort Lee’s own historic collections, as well as the Museum of Modern Art, The Players, the Shubert Archives, the Museum of the City of New York, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and a range of other public and private collections. But turning this concept into a dynamic and innovative gallery exhibition has been the work of a talented design team whose members are well versed in both local history and the interpretation of moving image media.
Elizabeth Skrabonja is the team leader. A fine artist and art historian, she is Curator at the Orangetown Historical Museum & Archives and Curator in Residence at the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York. She has designed exhibitions for a wide range of venues, including the Hudson Guild, Parsons School of Design, Stevens Institute of Technology, Museum of Food and Drink, and the Museum of Vodka in Warsaw, Poland. She immerses herself completely in all of her design projects. “Getting to know them, those Barrymores—they follow me into my dreams,” she admits.
Working with her as part of E.K. Skrabonja Exhibition Design are Sylvia Aisenstadt and Phyllis Schwitzer, both of whom have worked for many years in printing and graphic design, with a focus on not-for-profit and community based cultural institutions. They translate the most complex design concepts into functional graphic renderings that will take advantage of every inch of the museum’s 1800 square feet of gallery space. For Phyllis, the most interesting part of this project was her work on the extensive Barrymore Family Tree, a fifteen-foot wide graphic charting the relationships of sixty members of the Barrymore and Drew clans, from John Drew himself (1827-1862) to Drew Barrymore, and beyond.
Moving these plans from computer screens to the floor of the gallery calls on the skills of Wendell Walker, involved in all aspects of the Barrymore Film Center’s building operations and design. Recently retired as Deputy Director for Operations, Exhibition and Design at the Museum of the Moving Image, Wendell’s extensive forty-year career in the non-profit and cultural sphere also includes stints at MOMA/P.S. 1, Sotheby’s, and the Grey Art Gallery.
DR. RICHARD KOSZARSKI, Museum Curator
