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In 1964, the American filmmaker and author Warren Forma (1923–2014) released the fourth in his documentary film series 'Artists at Work'. 5 British Sculptors (work and talk) featured Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, filmed in their studios and outdoors: Armitage working in his carriage house in the heart of London, Hepworth in the artists' colony surrounded by the sea, Chadwick in Dick Whittington's castle – all individual, unique and fascinating. eir homes melded with their studios, their egos with their work, their work with their lives. Art is their life, and their way of life, art. 1 Forma's early life held few clues to his future career. Serving in the United States Air Force, participating in combat missions over France and Germany and receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross, he described himself as tending 'to be violent' and ignorant even of Toulouse-Lautrec. 2 Postwar, he worked by day as a delivery driver for the Ward Baking Company, by nights studying advertising at New York University, and at weekends he played trombone in a band. In 1948, encouraged by the photographer William Helburn, he forfeited a career in advertising to become a photographers' agent, representing Helburn, Arnold Newman, Ben Somoroff, and later the cinematographers Harold Becker, László Kovács and Haskell Wexler. It was during this period that Forma began to visit galleries and became 'enamored with art and what it has to say'. 3 Happenstance then intervened again. Invited in the mid-1950s to watch Helburn race a Ferrari 500 TR, Forma became bored, hired a helicopter and captured him on 16mm film. e resulting short feature, Man and Car, was hailed by Autosport as 'far and away the finest film ever made of the Grand Prix of endurance'. 4 us began Forma's engagement with documentary. His first release, Seven Roman Artists at Work (1962), focused on the contemporary painters and sculptors Afro Basaldella, Alberto Burri, Pietro Consagra, Antonio Corpora, Piero Dorazio, Nino Franchina, Roberto Matta and Gino Severini. School of Paris: Five Artists at Work (1963) featured Jean Dewasne, Marino Di Teana, Günter Fruhtrunk, Hans Hartung and Claude Weisbuch, while e Americans: 3 East Coast Artists (1963) addressed the work of Milton Avery, Hans Hofmann and Jack Tworkov. Aer 5 British Sculptors (1964), Forma made three single- artist documentaries: Images of Leonard Baskin (1965), on the US sculptor and printmaker; Weapons of Gordon Parks (1967), on the 1. Warren Forma, 5 British Sculptors (work and talk), New York, Grossman Publishers, 1964, p. 5. 2. Connie Benesch, 'Capturing the Artists at Work is Object of Series' Film Maker', New York Times, 13 April 1986, p. 28. 3. ibid. 4. ibid. Le: Warren Forma using an Arriflex 16mm film camera, c.1970 [detail] (photographer: unknown), Courtesy of Forma Art Films. BEHIND THE CAMERA: WARREN FORMA AND MODERN BRITISH SCULPTURE By Dr Judith LeGrove 7