Remembering the Artist Robert De Niro, Sr.

In 1945, the work of painter Robert De Niro, Sr. was included in the fall exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery, alongside works by Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. The following year, De Niro had his first solo exhibition at Guggenheim’s gallery, an extremely prestigious honor for a young painter. However, this well-received exhibition would prove to be the high point of De Niro’s public success. As his work soon fell out of step with the popular art movements of the time, De Niro struggled with poverty and depression. Looking for inspiration among artists he most revered, De Niro moved to France in 1960, but returned to New York a few years later and died there in 1993. An official selection at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, Remembering the Artist Robert De Niro, Sr. is a portrait of the esteemed figurative painter by the man who knew him best: his son. In intimate interviews, actor Robert De Niro, Jr. profiles an artist whose talent went largely unrecognized as the pop-art movement swept the nation in the 1960s, and looks at the relationship between a father and son. Directed by Perri Peltz and Geeta Gandbhir (see below), the 40-minute documentary highlights an array of De Niro, Sr. paintings, with his unique story revealed through photographs, audio recordings and home-movie footage, as well as excerpts from journals as read by his son.