FREE with Museum Admission: "Daughter of Rubens" Documentary Screening

FREE with paid Museum Admission

Daughter of Rubens – a short film documentary on the life and paintings of Nancy Ellen Craig (1927-2015).

Film Screening and Q/A

Director, Cinematographer, Editor: Sharah Hachey

Executive Producer: Gloria Monaghan

Co-Producers: Christine Jones, Michael Jones

The life and art of Truro-based artist Nancy Ellen Craig (1927-2015) is introduced in the short documentary film, Daughter of Rubens. Once regarded as the next John Singer Sargent, she began her mostly self-taught prolific career in New York, winning many prestigious awards including the Benjamin Altman Figure Prize of the National Academy of Design at the age of 26. A celebrated portraitist, she was commissioned by some of the most illustrious families of America and Europe including Frank Llyod Wright, Norman Mailer, The Guinness Family, The Duke of Argyll, Anjelica Huston, and Sean Connery to name a few.

She lived by Tosca’s motto “vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore” and like many artists she chose a nontraditional path to pursue both. Though married with two small children, she fell deeply in love with Preston Carter, a dashingly handsome and intelligent, though reclusive, poet.  She left her family and abandoned the art world in New York for him. Nancy is quoted as remembering “For more than twenty years, we lived a glamorous life. With his good looks and brains, and my talent, we made a nice combination.”

When not traveling to do commissioned portraiture, she and Preston lived a quiet, enigmatic life in Truro. She’d swim in the ocean most mornings then paint her larger-than-life paintings in the barn-studio she rented from acclaimed Provincetown artists, William and Lucy L’Engle.

Preston passed away in 2007 and Nancy would live another eight years. When her house burned down from an electrical fire, the Truro community rose to the occasion to help her rebuild. She was gregarious and enjoyed hosting dinner parties. And she reconnected with her oldest son, Craig Nelson, after forty years, who had long ago decided to make peace with her.

Daughter of Rubens sheds light on the bodies of work by this remarkable but unsung master artist. It is the film director’s and producers’ hope that audiences can comprehend the magnitude of her talent in the context of her story.