Len Lye
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Leonard Charles Huia Lye (; 5 July 1901 – 15 May 1980) was a New Zealand artist known primarily for his
experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...
s and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives including the
New Zealand Film Archive The New Zealand Film Archive was established in 1981. On 1 August 2014 the archive was amalgamated with Sound Archives Ngā Taonga Kōrero and the Television New Zealand Archive to form Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. 2009 lost film recovery In earl ...
,
British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
,
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in New York City, and the
Pacific Film Archive The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...
at
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. Lye's sculptures are found in the collections of the
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
, the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
, the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...
and the Berkeley Art Museum. Although he became a
naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
citizen of the United States in 1950, much of his work went to New Zealand after his death, where it is housed at the
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is a contemporary art museum at New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand. The gallery receives core funding from the New Plymouth District Council. Govett-Brewster is recognised internationally for contemporary art. H ...
in
New Plymouth New Plymouth ( mi, Ngāmotu) is the major city of the Taranaki region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the English city of Plymouth, Devon from where the first English settlers to New Plymouth migrated. ...
.


Career

As a student, Lye became convinced that motion could be part of the language of art, leading him to early (and now lost) experiments with kinetic sculpture, as well as a desire to make film. Lye was also one of the first
Pākehā Pākehā (or Pakeha; ; ) is a Māori term for New Zealanders primarily of European descent. Pākehā is not a legal concept and has no definition under New Zealand law. The term can apply to fair-skinned persons, or to any non-Māori New Ze ...
artists to appreciate the art of Māori, Australian Aboriginal, Pacific Island and African cultures, and this had great influence on his work. In the early 1920s Lye travelled widely in the South Pacific. He spent extended periods in Australia and Samoa, where he was expelled by the New Zealand colonial administration for living within an indigenous community. Working his way as a
coal trimmer A coal trimmer or trimmer is a position within the Engine department (ship), engineering department of a coal-fired ship which involves all coal handling duties. Their main task is to ensure that coal is evenly distributed within a vessel to ensu ...
aboard a
steam ship A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...
, Lye moved to London in 1926. He quickly entered
modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
circles, exhibiting with the
Seven and Five Society The Seven and Five Society was an art group of seven painters and five sculptors created in 1919 and based in London. The group was originally intended to encompass traditional, conservative artistic sensibilities. The first exhibition catalogue s ...
from 1927 until 1934, and becoming affiliated with the
Footprints Studio Footprints Studio was a textile printing workshop in the manner of the Arts and Crafts movement established by Celandine Kennington in 1925 at Durham Wharf in London's Hammersmith. Typical products were hand block printed fabric, curtains, coats a ...
. Most notably, Lye exhibited in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition and began to make experimental films. Following his first animated film ''Tusalava'', Lye began to make films in association with the British General Post Office, for the
GPO Film Unit The GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. The unit was established in 1933, taking on responsibilities of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit. Headed by John Grierson, it was set up to produce sponsored documentary films ...
. He reinvented the technique of drawing directly on film, producing his animation for the 1935 film ''
A Colour Box ''A Colour Box'' is a 1935 British experimental animated film by Len Lye. Commissioned to promote the General Post Office, it was Lye's first direct animation to receive a public release. Production In mid 1935, Lye struck a deal with John Grie ...
'', an advertisement for "cheaper parcel post", without using a camera for anything except the title cards at the beginning of the film. It was the first
direct film Drawn-on-film animation, also known as direct animation or animation without camera, is an animation technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock, as opposed to any other form of animation where the images o ...
screened to a general audience. It was made by painting vibrant abstract patterns on the film itself, synchronizing them to a popular dance tune by Don Baretto and His Cuban Orchestra. A panel of animation experts convened in 2005 by the Annecy Film Festival put this film among the top ten most significant works in the history of animation (his later film ''
Free Radicals In chemistry, a radical, also known as a free radical, is an atom, molecule, or ion that has at least one unpaired valence electron. With some exceptions, these unpaired electrons make radicals highly chemically reactive. Many radicals spont ...
'', not completed until 1979, was also in the top 50). Lye also worked for the GPO Film Unit's successor, the
Crown Film Unit The Crown Film Unit was an organisation within the British Government's Ministry of Information during the Second World War. Formerly the GPO Film Unit it became the Crown Film Unit in 1940. Its remit was to make films for the general public in ...
producing wartime information films, such as ''Musical Poster Number One''. On the basis of this work, Lye was later offered work for ''
The March of Time ''The March of Time'' is an American newsreel series sponsored by Time Inc. and shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. It was based on a radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945. The "voice" of both series was Westbrook Van Voorhis. Pr ...
'' newsreel in New York. Leaving his wife and children in England, Lye moved to New York in 1944. In ''Free Radicals'' he used black film stock and scratched designs into the emulsion. The result was a dancing pattern of flashing lines and marks, as dramatic as lightning in the night sky. In 2008, this film was added to the United States
National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...
. Lye continued to experiment with the possibilities of direct film-making to the end of his life. In various films he used a range of dyes, stencils, air-brushes, felt tip pens, stamps, combs and surgical instruments, to create images and textures on celluloid. In ''Color Cry'', he employed the "photogram" method combined with various stencils and fabrics to create abstract patterns. It is a 16mm direct film featuring a searing soundtrack by the blues singer
Sonny Terry Saunders Terrell (October 24, 1911 – March 11, 1986), known as Sonny Terry, was an American Piedmont blues and folk musician, who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and oc ...
. As a writer, Len Lye produced a body of work exploring his theory of ''IHN'' (Individual Happiness Now). He also wrote a large number of letters and poems. He was a friend of
Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...
, and of
Laura Riding Laura Riding Jackson (born Laura Reichenthal; January 16, 1901 – September 2, 1991), best known as Laura Riding, was an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer. Early life She was born in New York City to Nathan ...
and
Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...
(their
Seizin Press The Seizin Press was a small press, founded in 1927 by Laura Riding and Robert Graves in London from 1928 until 1935. From 1930 it was based in Majorca. Besides work by Graves and Riding, the Seizin Press published works by Gertrude Stein, Len L ...
published ''No Trouble'', a book drawn from Lye's letters to them, his mother, and others, in 1930). The NZEPC (New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre) website contains a selection of Lye's writings, which are just as surprising and experimental as his work in other media. One of his theories was that artists attempt to reproduce themselves in their works, which he exposited in an essay complete with visual examples. Lye was also an important kinetic sculptor and what he referred to as "Tangibles". He saw film and kinetic sculpture as aspects of the same "art of motion", which he theorised in a highly original way in his essays (collected in the book ''Figures of Motion''). Many of his kinetic works can be found at the
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is a contemporary art museum at New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand. The gallery receives core funding from the New Plymouth District Council. Govett-Brewster is recognised internationally for contemporary art. H ...
in
New Plymouth New Plymouth ( mi, Ngāmotu) is the major city of the Taranaki region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the English city of Plymouth, Devon from where the first English settlers to New Plymouth migrated. ...
,
Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dist ...
including a 45-metre high ''
Wind Wand The ''Wind Wand'' is a 48-metre kinetic sculpture located in New Plymouth, New Zealand. The sculpture includes a 45-metre tube of red fibreglass, and was made to designs by artist Len Lye. To residents, it is one of the main icons of New Plymout ...
'' near the sea. The ''Water Whirler'', designed by Lye but never realised in his lifetime, was installed on
Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...
's waterfront in 2006. His "Tangibles" were shown at
MOMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...
in New York in 1961 and are now found worldwide. In 1977, Len Lye returned to his homeland to oversee the first New Zealand exhibition of his work at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. Shortly before his death in 1980, Lye and his supporters established the Len Lye Foundation, to which he gave his work. The gallery is the repository for much of this collection, employing a full-time curator to ensure its preservation and appropriate exhibition. Lye was a maverick, never fitting any of the usual art historical labels. Although he did not become a household name, his work was familiar to many film-makers and kinetic sculptors – he was something of an "artist's artist", and his innovations have had an international influence. He is also remembered for his colourful personality, amazing clothes, and highly unorthodox lecturing style (he taught at
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
for three years). The 21st century has seen renewed international interest in Lye's career with retrospectives held at the
Pompidou Centre The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
, Paris in 2000, an Australian touring exhibition organised in 2001 by the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, at ACMI, Melbourne in 2009, and at
Ikon Gallery The Ikon Gallery () is an English gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace, Birmingham. It is housed in the Grade II listed, neo-gothic former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henry Chamberlain in 1877. Ikon was set u ...
,
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
, UK in 2010. Similarly, in New Zealand, surveys have been shown at the
Gus Fisher Gallery Gus Fisher Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. It is located in the Kenneth Myers Centre, a historic building restored in 2000 with the help of the gallery's patron, Gus Fisher (1920–2010). The gallery exhibits a reg ...
, Auckland in 2009, and City Gallery Wellington in 2013.
The University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn ...
staged an opera about his life in 2012.


Personal life

Lye was married twice. His first wife was Jane (Florence Winifred) Thompson with whom he had two children: * Bix Lye, also a sculptor, who lives and works in Williamsburg, New York * Yancy Ning Lou Lye (born 20 May 1940, Chiswick, London) In Reno, Nevada, in May 1948, Lye married his second wife, Annette "Ann" Zeiss (born 1910, Minnesota) on the same day he obtained a divorce from Jane. Ann was formerly married to Tommy Hindle, a British journalist. He died in
Warwick, New York Warwick is a town in the southwestern part of Orange County, New York, United States. Its population was 32,027 at the 2020 census. The town contains three villages (Florida, Greenwood Lake, and Warwick) and eight hamlets ( Amity, Bellvale, Ed ...
, in 1980.


Legacy

The Len Lye Collection and Archive consists of all non-film works in Lye’s possession at the time of his death in 1980, as well as several items that have been given to or otherwise acquired by the Foundation since. This body of work is extended by Len Lye works in the
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is a contemporary art museum at New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand. The gallery receives core funding from the New Plymouth District Council. Govett-Brewster is recognised internationally for contemporary art. H ...
. Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (formerly the New Zealand Film Archive) is the repository of Lye’s film prints that are owned by the Len Lye Foundation, and viewing prints are also in the Collection at the Govett-Brewster. The
Len Lye Centre The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is a contemporary art museum at New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand. The gallery receives core funding from the New Plymouth District Council. Govett-Brewster is recognised internationally for contemporary art. H ...
a dedicated gallery for the Len Lye collection connected to the Govett-Brewster was opened on 25 July 2015. This is the first gallery in New Zealand to be dedicated to a single artist. There are two documentaries about Lye: ''Flip and Two Twisters'', directed by Shirley Horrocks and ''Doodlin, and a DVD of Lye's talks illustrated with slides: ''Len Lye Talks about Art''.


Filmography

* ''Tusalava'' 10 min (1929) * ''
The Peanut Vendor "El manisero", known in English as "The Peanut Vendor", is a Cuban son-pregón composed by Moisés Simons. Together with "Guantanamera", it is arguably the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician. "The Peanut Vendor" has been recorde ...
'' 2 min (1933) * ''
A Colour Box ''A Colour Box'' is a 1935 British experimental animated film by Len Lye. Commissioned to promote the General Post Office, it was Lye's first direct animation to receive a public release. Production In mid 1935, Lye struck a deal with John Grie ...
'' 4 min (1935) in Dufaycolor * ''Kaleidoscope'' 4 min (1935) in
Dufaycolor Dufaycolor is an early British additive colour photographic film process, introduced for motion picture use in 1932 and for still photography in 1935. It was derived from Louis Dufay's Dioptichrome plates, a glass-based product for colour sti ...
* ''The Birth of The Robot'' 7 min (1936) in Gasparcolor * ''
Rainbow Dance ''Rainbow Dance'' is a 1936 British animated film, created by New Zealand-born animation pioneer Len Lye and released by the GPO Film Unit. Lye's second film to be viewed by the public, it uses the Gasparcolor process. Credits also list Australia ...
'' 5 min (1936) in
Gasparcolor Gasparcolor was a color motion picture film system, developed in Berlin in 1933 by the Hungarian chemist Dr. Béla Gáspár ( Oraviczbánya, Transylvania 1898-1973). It used a subtractive 3-color process on a single film strip, one of the earli ...
* ''Trade Tattoo'' (1937) 5 min in
Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...
* '' North or Northwest?'' (''N or NW?'') 7 min (1938) * ''Colour Flight'' 4 min (1937) in Gasparcolor * ''Swinging the Lambeth Walk'' 4 min (1939) in Dufaycolor * ''Musical Poster #1'' 3 min (1940) in Technicolor * ''When the Pie Was Opened'' 8 min (1941) * ''Newspaper Train'' 5 min (1942) * ''Work Party'' 7 min (1942) * '' Kill or Be Killed'' 18 min (1942) * ''Collapsible Metal Tubes'' 90 sec (1942) * ''Planned Crops'' 90 sec (1942) * ''Cameramen at War'' 17 min (1943) * ''Color Cry'' 3 min (1952) * ''Full Fathom Five'' 1 min (1953) * ''Life's Musical Minute'' 1 min (1953) * ''All Soul's Carnival'' 16 min (1957) * ''Rhythm'' 1 min (1957) * ''
Free Radicals In chemistry, a radical, also known as a free radical, is an atom, molecule, or ion that has at least one unpaired valence electron. With some exceptions, these unpaired electrons make radicals highly chemically reactive. Many radicals spont ...
'' 5 min (1958, revised 1979) * ''Prime Time'' 1 min (1958) * ''Fountain of Hope'' 1 min (1959) * ''Particles in Space'' 4 min (1966) * ''Tal Farlow'' 1min 30sec (completed posthumously, 1980)


Bibliography

* Len Lye, ''Zizz!: The Life and Art of Len Lye in his Own Words'', ed. Roger Horrocks, Wellington, Awa Press.


References


Notes


Further reading

*Auckland City Art Gallery (1980) ''Len Lye: A personal mythology'' (catalogue published in conjunction with an exhibition of his paintings, steel-motion contributions and films). *Bouhours, Jean Michel and Horrocks, Roger (ed) (2000) ''Len Lye'', Paris, Edition Centre Pompidou. *Curnow, Wystan and Horrocks, Roger (1984)'' Figures of Motion: Len Lye, Selected Writings, Oxford University Press/Auckland University Press, 1984. *Horrocks, Roger (2002) ''Len Lye: A Biography'', Auckland, Auckland University Press. *Horrocks, Roger (ed) (2002) ''Happy Moments: Text and Images By Len Lye'', Auckland, The Holloway Press.
Kashmere, Brett (2007) "Len Lye" in ''Senses of Cinema'' (Revised text of an entry first published in ''The Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film'', 2006)Len Lye
in '' Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand'' online encyclopedia *Horrocks, Roger (2009) ''Art that Moves: The Work of Len Lye'', Auckland, Auckland University Press. *Horrocks, Roger (ed) (2009) ''Body English: Text and Images By Len Lye'', Auckland, The Holloway Press.


External links

* * * * from the ''
Dictionary of New Zealand Biography The ''Dictionary of New Zealand Biography'' (DNZB) is an encyclopedia or biographical dictionary containing biographies of over 3,000 deceased New Zealanders. It was first published as a series of print volumes from 1990 to 2000, went online i ...
''
Work by Len Lye in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa TongarewaWorks, on New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre websiteListen to two Len Lye MP3s on thewire.co.ukLen Lye's Water Whirler, Wellington, New ZealandLen Lye
s work in the collection of
Te Papa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. ''Te Papa Tongarewa'' translates literally to "container of treasures" or in full "container of treasured things and people that spring fr ...

"Len Lye: The Body Electric; Ikon Gallery, Burmingham, UK"LEN LYE the opera
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lye, Len New Zealand emigrants to the United States Drawn-on-film animators New Zealand experimental filmmakers New Zealand film producers People from Christchurch Visual music artists Abstract animation 1901 births 1980 deaths People associated with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa People educated at Wellington High School, New Zealand 20th-century New Zealand sculptors 20th-century New Zealand male artists 20th-century sculptors