MUSES

Muses is a dramatic miniseries about the big, impossible love between artists and their muses which fueled the creation of the greatest masterpieces in the history of western civilization.

Each feature-length episode follows a key partner, lover, or confidante during the creation of a breakout piece. The origin stories of these well-known artworks become backdrops for the explosive love stories which inspired them. The stories expose the emotional, social, and political upheaval of their times: examining issues of sexual and racial inequality, immigration, child sexual abuse, xenophobia and queer art forced into the shadows for the sake of patronage.

 EPISODES*

1.     “Uncontrollability” (Sol LeWitt and Eva Hesse): Sol LeWitt is a young and hungry sculptor working the night shift at the MoMA when he meets Eva Hesse: brilliant, charismatic, and a fellow child of Jewish immigrants fleeing destruction. Eva’s never made a sculpture before meeting Sol; but as the two work together, combing Canal Street for industrial materials, she reveals a talent in “Repetition 19” that will soon eclipse Sol’s own developing reputation. In the wake of Eva’s untimely death from a brain tumor, Sol tries to piece together the ways their careers and lives have become permanently enmeshed through his deep love for her and her art. (script completed)

2.     “Andy and Jean” (Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol): Basquiat revitalizes the career of the aging Warhol, traumatized after being shot by an unstable fan, inspiring his mentor even as his own life spirals out of control. 

3.     “To Feel Through the Eyes” (Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight) Jacob and Gwendolyn fall in love in the heart of the Harlem Renaissance. As Jacob creates his seminal Migration Series, his struggles with mental health and constant search for a sense of home push their connection to the limit. 

4.     “The Shadowist” (Michelangelo da Caravaggio and Mario Minniti) Caravaggio is desperately in love with his model and fellow painter, Mario Minniti. Caravaggio’s jealous and murderous behavior forces the two apart. He flees to Sicily and his chiaroscuro masterpieces grow ever darker. 

5.     “From Versailles to the Kremlin” (Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Marie Antoinette): Élisabeth Vigée skyrockets to the apex of the 18th-century art world: until her scandalous affair with her muse and patron, Queen Marie Antoinette, endangers the careers—and lives—of both women and leaves Elizabeth a refugee.

6.     “Unmasked” (Pablo Picasso and Fernande Olivier): Early-20s Fernande Olivier escapes her abusive family to start a new life in Paris. She earns her keep as an artists’ model while training herself to draw, but quickly realizes the world of ‘The Academy’ only wants her as an object. Then she meets Pablo—only 23 years old—and the two fall into a surreal world of anarchy, gun trade, opium, and museum theft. The creation of “Les Demoiselles D’Avignon,” the adoption of a child and her opium addiction all push their relationship to the brink and forever change Fernande’s relationship to herself, her art, and her lover. (script completed)

*Each episode will be accompanied by bonus interviews with acclaimed art scholar and influencer, Kim Heirston, and the episode’s director.