Robert Townsend

Vacation slides are as much the butt of jokes as airline food, VCR clocks, and glamour shots. Americana artist Robert Townsend would disagree. With an interest in vernacular photography—in which amateur photographers shoot everyday images—Robert finds some vacation slides and becomes creatively smitten with one lady who appears in numerous photos, whom he thinks has a “superstar quality.” As he immortalizes her world in paintings that are outsized celebrations of the mid-century era, Townsend finds himself picking up clues and setting upon a quest to learn more about this happy mystery woman and her Kodacolor life. It’s a gorgeous and fascinating film celebrating an incredibly talented artist and his middle-American muse in cat-eye glasses.

Vacation slides are as much the butt of jokes as airline food, VCR clocks, and glamour shots. Americana artist Robert Townsend would disagree. With an interest in vernacular photography—in which amateur photographers shoot everyday images—Robert finds some vacation slides and becomes creatively smitten with one lady who appears in numerous photos, whom he thinks has a “superstar quality.” As he immortalizes her world in paintings that are outsized celebrations of the mid-century era, Townsend finds himself picking up clues and setting upon a quest to learn more about this happy mystery woman and her Kodacolor life. It’s a gorgeous and fascinating film celebrating an incredibly talented artist and his middle-American muse in cat-eye glasses.