The Echo Park Film Center, located in Los Angles California,  will be hosting “PRIMARY STIMULUS: A ROBERT RUSSETT MEMORIAL RETROSPECTIVE” To celebrate the life and work of the singular artist and animation historian Robert Russett (1935-2015), guest curator Mark Toscano has assembled this nearly complete retrospective of Russett’s 16mm films.  This program will span his early, radical Pop hybrids of Sharits and Conner, through his fascinating and rigorous abstract perceptual explorations, to the haunting and ominous impressionistic rephotography works in which Russett explored his adopted homeland of Acadian Louisiana.

Professor Russett received a M.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art and in 1962 studied with Stanley Hayter's at Altelier 17 in Paris. Professor Russet taught in the Department of Visual Arts at the teaching at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for over 45 years, receiving the University Distinguished Professor Award in 1972, and title Professor Emeritus upon retirement in 2006.

His body of work as a media artist, educator and writer spans fifty years. Professor Russetts work in included in many major museum collections including; The Australian National Film Library, Canberra, Australia; New York, Educational Film Library Association, Archive Collection; and The Film Archive of The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences, in Beverly Hills, California; and the Museum of Modern Art, Archive, New York where he also had a one-man exhibition, Cineprobe (Films), in 1981.
Additionally, Professor Russett's experimental films have been shown all over the world, including, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; G. Pompidou Center in Paris, France; Sinking Creek Film Celebration, Vanderbilt University; The New Orleans Museum of Art; Berkshire Museum, MA; Canadian Film Conservatory, Canada; Oberhausen Short Film Festival, West Germany; World Festival of Animation, Yugoslavia; Australian Filmmakers Festival, Australia; and the New York Film Festival at the Lincoln Center, 1977. Recently in 2013, Robert Russett Films have been preserved and are now part of the Film Archive Collection at The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences, in Hollywood, California and in October 2013, courtesy of the Academy Film Archive, several films were viewed at The 51st New York Film Festival, Film SSociety of Lincoln Center.