GREAT AMERICAN ILLUSTRATORS- A Television Series Featuring the NMAI Series will focus on Golden Age Illustrators in our American Imagist Collection The National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI) is pleased to announce its collaboration with Daybreak Productions for their upcoming Great American Illustrators television series.  This will be the first television series examining both the lives and artworks of luminary artists from the Golden Age of American Illustration. The National Museum of American Illustration, the first and largest museum to be dedicated solely to Illustration artwork, has allowed Daybreak Productions exclusive access to film the NMAI's American Imagist Collection to be featured in the Great American Illustrators series.  The footage from this filming, done in High Definition (HD) video, will reveal the delicate brush strokes, luminous surfaces, saturated colors, and dramatic imagery from the paintings in the collection with exquisite detail. Above Right: HD camera being prepared to film the study for Maxfield Parrish's Daybreak. Daybreak Productions was founded in 2006 by Executive Producer Brian Leonard and Director/Editor Gary Meyers to produce the highest quality video for film and television in order to educate the public about important but sometimes overlooked or forgotten individuals who have contributed significantly to the artistic culture of the United States. Both cofounders of Daybreak Productions have extensive backgrounds working in film and television. Executive producer Brian Leonard's documentary VIETNAM POWs: Stories of Survival, which aired on the Discovery Channel, received a 1998 Emmy for outstanding non-fiction primetime special. His other documentary credits include Military Channel's Battlefield Diaries, ESPN's award-winning investigative series Outside the Lines , and Discovery's On The Inside series, The Washington Monument: It Stands for All and Kennedy Women: Passion and Politics. Brian was the executive producer of Conquering Space: The Moon & Beyond for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment. He co-created and was co-executive producer of America's Most Wanted: FINAL JUSTICE, and spent three years as supervising producer of the Fox series, MANHUNTER . Above Left: Daybreak Productions photographer John Cavanaugh prepares to film Maxfield Parrish's Florentine Fete, while a well-behaved young visitor to the museum and her mother look on. Director/Editor Gary Meyers' editing credits include such recent documentaries as National Geographic Explorer's The Secret Jesus and Ultimate Shark , and Discovery's The Washington Monument: It Stands For All and Kennedy Women: Passion and Politics. In addition to National Geographic and Discovery, Gary's clients include TLC and New Dominion Pictures, for which he directed and edited FBI Files, New Detectives, Prosecutors, and Navy Seals. For America's Most Wanted, Gary has edited over 1000 of the filmed crime reenactments and produced, directed and edited nearly 50 episodes. His motion picture credits include Love To Kill, starring Tony Danza, Louise Fletcher and Michael Madsen, and Bram Stoker's The Mummy, starring Lou Gosset Jr. Above: Director/Editor Gary Meyers interviews NMAI advisory board member and Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg. The first series by Daybreak Productions, Great American Illustrators, will detail the stories of amazing artist-illustrators such as Howard Pyle, Maxfield Parrish, JC Leyendecker, The Red Rose Girls, NC Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, Charles Dana Gibson, and many other illustrators whose work can be found on display in the Museum's collection. The series traces their careers as they rose from obscure artists to internationally renowned illustrators, while in the process fashioning the social symbols of American life we now take for granted. The starting point of the series will be a 90-minute program on the life and career of Maxfield Parrish, which includes a rare audio interview with the reclusive artist. The series will also feature interviews with NMAI co- founders Laurence and Judy Cutler, noted Hollywood celebrity and illustration collector Whoopi Goldberg, Joanna Maxfield Parrish (Maxfield Parrish's granddaughter), and others. Above: NMAI Director Judy Cutler (far left) looks on as Daybreak Productions photographer John Cavanaugh films the Rustin Levenson Art Conservation Associates team preparing to re-adhere the center panel of Maxfield Parrish's Old King Cole mural at New York City's St. Regis Hotel.

The Museum is open year-round for visitors and group tours by advance reservation. Tickets: $25. Group Tours, Seniors (60+), and Military w/id: $22. Children 12 & under are not admitted. For More Information, Contact: Eric Brocklehurst National Museum of American Illustration 492 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, RI 02840 T: 401-851-8949 ext.18. F: 401-851-8974 eric@americanillustration.org, www.americanillustration.org The National Museum of American Illustration is a nonprofit, independent, educational and aesthetic organization. It is located in Newport, RI, on Bellevue Avenue at Vernon Court (1898), a Carreré and Hastings designed Beaux-Arts adaptation of an 18th century French chateau. It is the first national museum devoted exclusively to American illustration art. Illustration consists of original artwork created to be reproduced in books, magazines, newspapers, and advertisements. 'Golden Age' paintings by such luminaries as Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, NC Wyeth, JC Leyendecker, and 75 others are displayed in 'Gilded Age' architecture, creating a unique union of architecture and art - a national treasure. The Museum is administered by the American Civilization Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the goal to present the best possible venue for appreciating the greatest collection of illustration art - the most American of American art. Read on... COPYRIGHT NOTICE: This email message and its contents are copyrighted and are our proprietary products. Any unauthorized use, reproduction, or transfer of this message or its contents, in any medium, is strictly prohibited. ©2007 National Museum of American Illustration.