Quay Brothers: On Deciphering the Pharmacist’s Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets

Identical twins Stephen and Timothy Quay are internationally renowned moving image artists and designers who for over thirty years have been in the avant-garde of stop-motion puppet animation. Creating work in the tradition of Czech surrealists Jan Švankmajer and Jiri Trnka, Russian animator Yuri Norstein and Polish animator Walerian Borowczyk, they practice a design aesthetic influenced by Polish graphic artists such as Jan Lenica, Roman Cieslewicz, Franciszek Starowieyski and Henryk Tomaszewski. Since 1971, they have produced over forty-five moving images, including features, music videos, dance films, documentaries and signature personal works, and have designed sets and projections for opera, drama and concert performances. Published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art – the first presentation of the Quay Brothers work in all their fields of creative activity – this richly illustrated publication presents their betterknown films as well as previously unseen moving image works and a little-known body of works on paper, including graphic design, drawings, typography and notebooks for films.