We have begun our rewarding journey, creating a documentary film of the life of Hans Kleiber.
Edmond Allmond, director, producer, is a world-renowned performer, composer and film maker who has worked with
Sony Pictures,
Columbia Television, Tristar Films,
RKO Films,
Rhino Records,
Motown,
Saban Int'l,
Disney Studios,
CBS Television, and various independent film and media companies. Allmond was a staff composer and editor at Sony, a critical member of a two-person team and responsible for restoration of musical scores for many classic films now in the Sony library. Additionally, he restored and edited elements of movies by Paramount Studios and MGM.
He has been featured on the concert stage as a performer and composer, and in numerous productions for television. He has collaborated with several significant non-profit organizations including
The Museum of Tolerance and City of Hope, and with national and multi-national corporations as a communications and marketing exec, helping tell their stories to the world.
Renowned artist
Beverly Kleiber-Palmer is the grand-daughter of Hans Kleiber.
Beverly is the executive producer of this project. She was one of the first artists in the world to engage digital technology in the quest for interactivity in art. She is also known for large format flat glass and neon art in California's Bay Area and on the East Coast.
Together, this team completed 22 biopics for Sheridan, Wyoming's
Brinton Museum.
The Life of Hans Kleiber
Hans' father Joseph Kleiber found textile design career opportunity in Webster, Massachusetts. The family left the smoldering tensions of their homeland, arriving in America in 1900. Hans would study art with Clarence Blodgett, meet his first wife, Frances Emma Millet, and make his way to Dayton, Wyoming to begin career with the U.S. Forest service on the way to becoming a globally recognized artist.
This film tells the story of Kleiber's interesting and dynamic life. He became America's first major artist who also worked as a naturalist in the western United States. At age 18, Kleiber became one of the first Forest Guards for the nascent United States Forest Service. He was quickly promoted to Forest Ranger.
The research conducted by Allmond for this documentary has uncovered Kleiber's connections to significant milestones and persons in American history, some of which Beverly's family (her father was Hans' first child) was not previously aware of.
Hans Kleiber was a modest but powerful individual, recognized in his lifetime and now as an accomplished, prolific intaglio and paint artist.
Kleiber became the first artist/forest ranger to accurately portray much of the wildlife in Wyoming, in Montana, and across the northwest. His keen memory and deft hand captured detail of the movement, especially of fowl, that cameras of the time could not. Kleiber took his forestry assignment at about the same time as Aldo Leopold, with whom he shares the same year of birth. During his 17-year career he became a force in wildlife conservation in his region; he was also tasked with mapping parts of the upper U.S. west of the Mississippi River and the bayous of Louisiana. His etchings, drypoint, watercolors and oils are prized by collectors world-wide. He is author of several little-know books, including a collection of poetry that displays his breadth of creativity.
His friendships with painter Bill Gollings, equality activist, publisher and cousin Alice Blackwell and other prominent Americans is documented in letters and journals. His poetry tells the beauty of his beloved Wyoming. His mentorship of other artists left a legacy that is cherished in Wyoming’s Sheridan Country and beyond. His memory is kept alive by the Apsáalooke People (Crow Nation) for his compassion and advocacy. His story is a fascinating web of events that is journaled in newspapers of the region and in his diaries. It is time it be told to the youth of American to inspire service to, and preservation of, the land and all upon it, through artistic expression and careers with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service.
The Brinton Museum
The Brinton Museum holds the largest collection of Hans Kleiber works in the world.
The Brinton Museum is a multi-faceted institution that connects the past, present and future of the American West through its historic Quarter Circle A Ranch, Fine Art, and American Indian Art Collections.
You are cordially invited to become a part of the team and bring this fascinating and important story to life.