Academy award-winning alumnus visits campus to screen documentary
LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 22, 2025) — The University of Kentucky will welcome Academy Award-winning alumnus Paul Wagner Thursday, April 24, for a screening of his film “Georgia O’Keeffe: the Brightness of Light,” a documentary about American art icon Georgia O’Keeffe. The film stars Claire Danes as the voice of O’Keeffe with narration by Hugh Dancy and features interviews with leading experts on the artist.
Paul Wagner completed a Bachelor of Arts in English and linguistics and a Master of Arts in communications research design at the University of Kentucky and was inducted into the UK Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 2020. Wagner and his wife and producing partner, Ellen Casey Wagner, were inspired to develop the documentary after visiting a museum exhibit about O’Keeffe in 2018.
“We learned that, in 1908, when she was 20 years old, O’Keeffe had given up on her dream of becoming an artist,” Paul Wagner said. “This young woman, who would later emerge as ‘the Mother of American Modernism’ and the iconic woman artist of the 20th century, did not pick up a brush to paint for nearly four years.”
O’Keeffe exploded on the New York art scene in the 1920s with her paintings of flowers, bones, and the beauty of nature. In the 1970s, O’Keeffe, isolated in the New Mexico desert, emerged as an iconic role model for second-wave feminists. “The Brightness of Light” explores the life and art of one of the most important American woman artists of the 20th century.
Wagner is an Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning independent filmmaker, whose documentaries have premiered at the Sundance, Toronto, Telluride and Rotterdam film festivals and have been broadcast widely on PBS. He has produced and directed over 40 films over a 40-year career.
While on campus, Wagner will speak with students in film courses in the College of Communication and Information and the College of Fine Arts.
“The Brightness of Light” will be screened at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 24, in the Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall. Admission is free and open to the public. A talkback with the director and producer, Paul and Ellen Wagner, will follow
This screening is a collaboration of the College of Fine Arts, the College of Communication and Information, and the College of Arts and Sciences.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.