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

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Ron Magliozzi

Edwin Carels et. al.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012, English

Nonfiction, Graphic Design; Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History; Nonfiction, Film and Theater

8 x 10 inches, paperback, 64 pages, 60 color illustrations

ISBN: 9780870708435

Suggested Retail Price: $24.95

From the Publisher. The Quay Brothers are internationally renowned moving-image artists and designers who, for over thirty years, have been at the vanguard of stop-motion puppet animation and live-action movie making, working in the Eastern European tradition of filmmakers such as Walerian Borowczyk, Jan Švankmajer, and Yuri Norstein and championing a design aesthetic influenced by the graphic surrealism of Polish poster artists of the 1950s and 1960s.

Quay Brothers: On Deciphering the Pharmacist’s Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets, published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, presents the full range of the Quays’ art, including previously unseen moving-image works and a little-known body of works on paper, including graphic design, drawings, and typography.

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Rick Poynor

On Rick Poynor’s Notable Books of 2012 list

The Quay Brothers, twins from Pennsylvania who live in London, are two of the most visionary artists working in film, and this catalogue accompanied an exhibition at MoMA. They began by studying illustration and, alongside the film stills, the book includes little-seen examples of their designs for books and posters. Like their films, the graphic work seems to emanate from some uncanny middle Europe where expressionism and surrealism are conducting a weird embrace. An essential volume for admirers, it includes two projects by the brothers, including a fanciful conversation with a 16th-century lettering artist.

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