Edith Kramer: Art Therapy’s Muse Part II

Two films are included. The first is “Art Tells the Truth” by Elena Makarova (about 40 minutes) which documents Elena’s research, relationship and overlapping interests with Edith Kramer. Elena worked in the Soviet Union with children with disabilities and sought out Edith Kramer in New York City stimulated by their shared interest in Friedl Dicker-Brandeis’s work and approach. Edith’s early years as an art therapist are described including her work on Riker’s Island, the concept of the third hand, and  her ideas about the relationship between art and life.

The second film is a “Eulogy for Edith” by Judith Rubin made for a Memorial Symposium at NYU (about 60 minutes). It is a compilation and overview of photographs as well as excerpts from prior films from Part 1 and 2 of this series, with additional footage of her work at Wiltwick School for Boys, Jewish Guild for the Blind, a 1975 diagnostic procedure and a 1979 lecture at Walter Reed Hospital and interviews with adults who worked with Edith’s Teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, while she was interned in the concentration camp of Terezin. Edith describes her personal analysis while in Prague and its continuation in New York after emigrating, as well as the importance of transference and the need to understand countertransference. It ends with her funeral at in Austria, where she had gone to live permanently after retirement, in 2014.

Total Running Time: 1 hour, 6 minutes, 12 seconds