…I sought out a conversation with Michael Maglaras, documentary film maker, who, along with his wife, Terri Templeton, have produced a number of “essays in film” under the banner, 217 Films. Maglaras and Templeton have taken an interest in these vital, yet tumultuous years of the early 20th century, with particular focus on American artists from the early modern period. He points out that, “Early American Modernism comes as an antithesis of what you’d expect. We were at the height of social, economic and imperialist growth. We were swaggering across the world stage at that time. Right in the middle of that expansionistic period in our history comes a group of artists engaged in what I would call a period of superb self-examination. Just as we were gaining an understanding of who we were as a nation, a handful of painters, musicians and writers ‘whack’ us with a new truth!”