Overview

• Jacobs died Sunday in New York, according to his son, who said kidney failure was the cause.
• A central figure of the underground, he transformed archival images in landmark works such as Tom, Tom the Piper’s Son, Star Spangled to Death, and Blonde Cobra.
• With Flo Jacobs he founded the Millennium Film Workshop in 1966, and he later helped establish SUNY Binghamton’s cinema department, where he taught for decades.
• He pursued depth illusions through performance apparatuses and a patented technique he called “eternalism,” and he was completing new pieces shortly before his hospitalization.
• Institutions cemented his legacy in recent years, with MoMA acquiring 212 works in 2023 and major museums and festivals continuing to exhibit his films.