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(Hollywood) Mort Künstler, America's premier Civil War artist, has been named as the official artist for the eagerly awaited Ron Maxwell epic motion picture Gods and Generals. Maxwell, who is the film's director and writer, announced Künstler's selection for the honor.

	Mort Künstler on the set of Gods and Generals with Robert Duvall and Ron Maxwell in Hagerstown, MD

The film Gods and Generals is a prequel to the epic motion picture Gettysburg, which was also directed by Maxwell, and which has been praised as one of the most authentic war movies in the history of cinema. Gettysburg follows the lives of Northern and Southern officers and soldiers through the deadly drama of the Civil War's greatest battle. It is based on the immensely popular novel, Killer Angels, which was written by the late Michael Shaara.

Maxwell's forthcoming Gods and Generals is based on the best-selling historical novel of the same name authored by Jeff Shaara, who is Michael Shaara's son. The film, like the novel, follows the fortunes of key Civil War characters from the eve of war through the pivotal two years of bloody fighting that preceded the battle of Gettysburg.

Mort Künstler, acclaimed in the nation's art circles as "America's premier historical artist," has specialized in painting scenes from the War Between the States since 1988, and is heralded as the country's most-collected Civil War artist. His best-selling book, Gettysburg: The Paintings of Mort Künstler - which featured a historical text by Pulitzer Prize winning historian James McPherson - was the official companion volume to the Gettysburg motion picture.

"It's a unique honor for me to be selected as the official artist for the Gods and General motion picture," says Künstler. "Ron Maxwell's creation of the film Gettysburg was both authentic and inspirational. It was a great story and a great film history of Gettysburg. I know that Gods and Generals will be an equally successful accomplishment for him and everyone associated with the project. The entire Civil War community is waiting for this film with great enthusiasm, and I'm very, very pleased to have a role in what will be another epic motion picture."

In his role as the official Gods and Generals artist, Mort Künstler will be producing a series of limited edition fine art prints that depict key historical scenes from the Civil War that are related to events depicted in the motion picture. A fully illustrated book, similar to Gettysburg-The Paintings of Mort Künstler, is also planned.

Künstler's limited edition fine art Civil War prints are displayed in countless homes, offices and institutions throughout America. His originals are represented by Hammer Galleries, the prestigious New York City art gallery. "Künstler's reputation as a painter is based on his exceptional technical ability as well as the authenticity of his pictures," says Hammer's Richard Lynch. "In addition, each picture is beautifully staged and executed. The vivid color of his paintings is yet another aspect of his ability to convey drama in paint and canvas."

Künstler has been honored by unprecedented one-man Civil War art exhibitions at the Gettysburg National Battlefield, New York's Nassau County Museum of Art, the North Carolina Museum of History, Richmond's Museum of the Confederacy and other distinguished centers of art and history. The seven-week exhibition of his work at New York's Nassau County Museum of Art drew more than 40,000 visitors and surpassed the attendance record established by a Picasso exhibition.

A series of exceptionally popular books - Images of the Civil War, Gettysburg, Legends in Gray, The Confederate Spirit and others - have also showcased his Civil War art. Gettysburg: The Art of Mort Künstler has sold more than 170,000 copies.

"He is the foremost Civil War artist of our time, if not of all time, because of his devotion to truth and detail in history," observes Dr. James I. Robertson, the dean of American Civil War historians. "To study his paintings is simply to see history alive. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson concurs. Of all the artists working in the Civil War field, he observes, none captures the human element, the aura of leadership, the sense of being there and sharing in the drama, quite like Mort Künstler."

Director Ron Maxwell says production of Gods and Generals is scheduled to begin by September 2001 on actual historic sites in Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland. Many of the actors who earned acclaim in the movie Gettysburg will reprise their roles in the new film, which will also feature principal roles depicting Stonewall Jackson and his wife Mary Anna, Myra Hancock, Mary Custis Lee and Frances Caroline Chamberlain.

"The work of generations of scholars, historians, chroniclers, archivists, journalists, novelists, composers, filmmakers, researchers, archeologists, academicians and plain old lovers of history provided a foundation, a resource, an atmosphere and an inspiration for the possibility of this film's creation," Ron Maxwell said of the motion picture Gettysburg in 1993. Today, the same can be said of the effort now underway to produce Gods and Generals.

www.jeffshaara.com
www.ronmaxwell.com

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