Glenn Bruce Hamm Jr. - born May 30, 1936 in Dayton, Ohio was a noted artist who worked and lived in Richmond, Virginia. He had a BFA and MFA from Carnegie Mellon, and a Ph.D. from Purdue University.
Glenn Hamm taught art at Carlow College from 1963 to 1964, West Virginia University from 1965 to 1969 and Virginia Commonwealth University until his death from Lou Gehrig's Disease in 1980.
GO TO RVA TV TO WATCH THE FILM.
He wrote an art instruction book, "Painting the nude" which was a well respected book on the subject of painting the human figure. His paintings, which have been displayed only rarely since his death in retrospectives organized by his son Carl Hamm, often dealt with dreams, sexuality and the subconsious. These paintings were filled with mysterious beauty and sensuality.
Hamm's painting style has been described as "hyper-realist", yet he used this realist style to paint the images of his dreams. Hamm most frequently painted the human form, but often juxtaposed his subjects in dreamy surroundings and manipulated the light in creative ways to play with depth, shadow, texture, perspective and mood.
Hamm's Doctoral Thesis explained his observations and theories concerning Visual Perception and sought new ways to explain how we perceive three dimensional depth in two dimensional surfaces (such as paintings). Hamm passed away just before the dawn of the computer age so it would be interesting to know what Mr Hamm could have done if he had had access to modern digital technology.
Hamm was a truly "classical" painter in some ways - mixing his own pigments, and following methods of master painters whose techniques he obsessively researched. In other ways, Hamm was a very experimental artist. He mixed media in new ways, developed his own photos, printed his own books and etchings - and experimented with just about every form of media available to him that could assist him in channeling the beauty he saw around him into his artwork. He made films (like the one you see here), took photos, made animation, wrote poetry, plays, and composed music on piano. In short, Hamm was incredibly prolific, and unfortunately much of his work remains unseen to this day.
For that reason, it has always been important to his son to preserve this work - which is why this video was created from an old dusty film reel found in a box.
As a professor, Glenn Hamm was a favorite of many VCU students who took his Art Education and Art Foundation classes. He developed meaningful rapport with his students, and inspired nearly everyone he met. Glenn Hamm was respected by students and Art Faculty alike, and many current VCU Art Faculty and alumni still remember him thirty years later. Virginia Commonwealth University's Art Education Department offers an annual academic award in his name.
This film was transferred from an old film reel by his son, Carl Hamm who has been managing the collection of his fathers work for many years now.
"My father passed away when I was very young, so of course I always wanted to know more about him. The best way we could really get to know him was through his art, photos, and journals. As a young kid, i spent alot of time shuffling though the textbooks, course materials, slides, paintings and drawings my father left behind. Of course, over the years we had to make difficult decisions to let alot of that stuff go. But I still tried to save the things that meant the most to me -- his paintings, photos, and music recordings... and it was incredibly inspiring to discover this Super 8 film reel. When I thread the film through and turned on the lamp, this was the first time since I was a very young child that I was able to see glimpses of my father "in motion" and happily working in his element at VCU. It was also an incredible time capsule for everyone else who has seen it because the places shown in this footage - Grace Street, Shaffer Court, Harrison Street continue to be the heart of Richmond's arts and music culture. It's important for people to be able to look back and see the way it used to look. Richmond has changed alot since 1977, but many of the areas shot in this film are still reconizable today. This film was taken by Professor Glenn B Hamm on one of his afternoon walks around VCU. "
Music added by DJ Carlito
Tracks:
Jose Gonzalez - How Low
Shiloh - Bleed
Bonobo - Recurring
Boards of Canada - Left Side Drive
the Bees - These are the ghosts