Murray Grigor is a Scottish
writer, film-maker and exhibition designer, born in Inverness
. His first film on
Charles Rennie Mackintosh won 5
international awards and helped re-establish the reputation of the
great architect.
In 1976,
Grigor created nearly a dozen films for Hans Hollein's opening
exhibition of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design
Museum
, "Man Transforms." He was awarded a UK/US
Bicentennial Fellowship in the Arts to research a film on the
architecture of
Frank Lloyd
Wright.
After leaving the
BBC in 1967 as a film editor
he wrote and directed Mackintosh and has since then made more than
50 films in the arts and architecture. He directed the Edinburgh
International Festival from 1967 to 1972.
Grigor has made a number of humorous polemical films including
Big Banana Feet, documenting the 1975 Irish tour of
Billy Connolly and "Scotch Myths"
1982 for Channel 4 with Barbara Grigor, based on their provocative
touring exhibition on Scottish kitsch at the Crawford Centre in St
Andrews and the Edinburgh Festival.
In 1984 - 6, Mr. Grigor directed the 8-part one-hour television
series "Pride of Place" with Robert A.M. Stern, produced by Michael
Gill and Stephany Marks which was broadcast on PBS. That series was
highly acclaimed and dealt with American architecture
thematically.
In 1997 he directed the WETA series "Face of Russia" for PBS with
James Billington, Librarian of Congress, produced by Georgina
Denison and Michael Gill
Grigor's films on architects and artists have included the multi
award winning Frank Lloyd Wright with the architect's granddaughter
Anne Baxter, for which Grigor received a Citation of Excellence
from the American Institute of Architecture, the first ever to be
awarded to a film-maker; "The Hand of Adam" on the architecture of
Robert Adam, 1975 and "Space and Light" 1972 on St Peter's
Seminary, Cardross, the modernist seminary by Isi Metzstein and
Andy MacMillan for Gillespie Kidd and Coia; "The Architecture of
Carlo Scarpa" 1995 with Richard Murphy
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Murphy_(architect) - 22k) which
opened the Montréal Festival du Films surl'Art; E.P. Sculptor on
the art of
Eduardo Paolozzi which
won the Rodin prize at the 1992 Paris Biennale; "Nineveh on the
Clyde" on the architecture of Glasgow's Alexander "Greek" Thomson
1999 which won awards at Montréal and from Europa Nostra at
Toblach, Italy. He has directed two films for the Checkerboard
Foundation in New York. "In Search of Clarity" 1995 on the
architecture of Gwathmey Siegel and "English Architect - American
Legacy" on Sir John Soane's influence on such contemporary
architects as Philip Johnson, Richard Meier, Michael Graves, Henry
Cobb, Robert Stern, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott
Brown,2005.
Grigor directed "Is Mise an Teanga" on the poetry and art of the
Great Book of the Gael, which was connected with
An Leabhar Mòr[277556].
He was the first film-maker to be made an Honorary Member of the
Royal Incorporation of Architects Scotland and the Royal Institute
of British Architects.
In 2006,
he has been awarded a Creative Scotland award [277557], to revisit the St.Peter's seminary in
Cardross
, subject of an early film.
In August 2007 he was appointed to the
Scottish Broadcasting
Commission established by the
Scottish Executive which advocated a new
independent public service television channel for Scotland.
'Being a Scot', his collaboration with Sir Sean Connery on shared
aspects of Scottish culture, was launched in August 2008 at the
Edinburgh Book Festival. 'Infinite Space', on the architecture of
John Lautner opened on September 2008 at the Billy Wilder Theater,
Los Angeles, next to the Hammer Gallery's exhibition on the
architect's life work, for which Grigor directed seven film loops.
This exhibition, 'Between Earth and Heaven' transfered to the
Glasgow Lighthouse in March 2009, as its only European venue.
External links