Between 1980 and 1984, the Quay Brothers spent much of their time either making or contributing to documentaries. This was part of a conscious strategy devised by their producer Keith Griffiths to help attract television commissions and give their puppet animation wider circulation outside the confines of the experimental film. Their early work included Punch and Judy (1980), The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderolde (1981), Leos Janacek: Intimate Excursions and Igor Stravinsky: The Paris Years chez Pleyel (both 1983) and The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer (1984).
Since that time, the Quays have preferred to explore their own fantastical worlds, but in 1991 they made a brief return to the documentary form with Anamorphosis, commissioned as part of The Program for Art on Film, a project backed by the Getty Foundation and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In collaboration with art historian Roger Cardinal (who had also contributed to the full-length The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer), the Quays assembled this witty exploration of a fascinating visual phenomenon which, as the opening titles explain, “plays mischievously yet revealingly with the relationship between the eye and what it sees.”
Anamorphosis relies on a deliberately deformed image that can be made to reappear in its true shape when viewed in an unusual way (for instance, obliquely, or through a distorting mirror), and the Quays provide several examples. Firstly, there’s a short lecture on the principles of perspective, illustrated by an example of how the eye can be fooled (a massively elongated chair appears to be normal from one particular viewpoint). Two woodcuts by Erhard Schön (c. 1535) show how subversive material can be hidden inside outwardly normal images, while an anonymous painting (c. 1550) is arranged with strategic peepholes to reveal lurking religious imagery. On a more ambitious scale, Emmanuel Maignan created an anamorphic fresco for a Roman monastery in 1642, while Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533), on permanent view in London’s National Gallery, is probably the most famous anamorphic painting, its obliquely-fashioned skull in the foreground hinting at the mortality that awaits even the wealthy.
The Quays alternate between their familiar puppet animation with a new technique incorporating three-dimensional cut-out figures that emerge from and retreat into the background, providing a witty visual equivalent of the anamorphic process. There is also much analysis of the original artworks, viewed in close-up and from several angles. —Michael Brooke, BFI Screenonline
The Quay brothers are identical twin brothers born outside Philadelphia, in Norristown, Pennsylvania. They studied Film and Illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art {1965-1969} followed by a Masters Degree in London at the Royal College of Art {1969-1972} where they continued their studies in Illustration and Film, particularly the latter, where they made three short animation films. Returning to America they attempted to make a living from free-lance book illustration out of New York, though economically times were difficult. In terms of their work, there was an increasing frustration with the two-dimensional graphic realm of drawing and little by little they gravitated towards wanting to create in miniature (in the manner of Joseph Cornell’s boxes) powerful three-dimensional realms, using puppets and objects through the medium of film animation. In 1978 they received a National Endowment Grant for the Arts. They travelled throughout England, Belgium and Holland researching… read more
Stephen and Timothy Quay (born June 17, 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania) are American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators. They are the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for their work on the play The Chairs.
They reside and work in England, having moved there in 1969 to study at the Royal College of Art, London after studying illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. In England they made their first short films, which no longer exist after the only print was irreparably damaged.[citation needed] They spent some time in the Netherlands in the 1970s and then returned to England where they teamed up with another Royal College student, Keith Griffiths, who produced all of their films. The trio formed Koninck Studios in 1980, which is currently based in Southwark, south London.
The Quays’ works (1979-present… read more
