20 Facts About Carmen D'Avino

Carmen D'Avino was a pioneer in animated short films.

Carmen D'Avino remained in Paris after the war and was the first American to use the GI Bill to study abroad.

Carmen D'Avino enrolled at the Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Carmen D'Avino began to experiment with film, documenting the experiences of postwar France.

Carmen D'Avino met his future wife, Helena Elfing of Finland in 1947, and in 1948, after an extended tour hitchhiking together across Italy, he followed her to India where she had accepted the position of tutor to the son of the newly posted French Ambassador to India.

Carmen D'Avino had hoped to continue his art studies in India under the GI Bill, but was unable to find a suitable school.

Carmen D'Avino had the opportunity to meet and discuss film with Jean Renoir who was in Delhi to film The River.

Carmen D'Avino continued his painting and exhibited twice, once in Delhi and once in Bombay.

The contrast of strong colors found in Carmen D'Avino's work comes out of his time spent in India.

Carmen D'Avino was influenced by Indian miniature paintings, most of all from their ornamental elements and areas covered in pure colors.

Carmen D'Avino continued his art studies by enrolling at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere, and in 1951 returned to North America, and eventually to New York City.

The honor of receiving a Creative Film Award was significantly enhanced when Salvador Dali presented it to Carmen D'Avino, who was now embarking on a career in film that would last the rest of his life.

Carmen D'Avino's film making flourished during the personally, politically, and artistically liberating years of the 1960s.

Carmen D'Avino's films were shown and awarded honors at film festivals in New York, San Francisco, Montevideo, Uruguay; London, England; Oberhausen, Germany; Annecy, France; Mamaia, Rumania; Krakow, Poland; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Melbourne, Australia.

Carmen D'Avino received an Academy nomination for Best Documentary Short for his film Background in 1974.

In 1983, when Lincoln Center's film festival celebrated its 20th anniversary, Carmen D'Avino was honored once more when the festival again began with his film, Pianissimo.

Carmen D'Avino completed a series of short, fully animated films for the Children's Television Workshop including Happy, Freak, Funny, Library, Flower, and Hydrant alongside the trailer for the 1974 French film Going Places.

Carmen D'Avino transfuses his art with his spirit and it is a symbiotic relationship.

Carmen D'Avino believed all you need is food, work and love.

Several of Carmen D'Avino's films have been preserved by the Academy Film Archive, including Pianissimo, The Room, and A Trip, in 2007, and Background, in 2012.