About the Brothers Quay

1. Brothers Quay
BY JOEL AND MAIA

2. Who are they?
 Stephen and Timothy Quay (born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, U.S on June 17
1947) are identical American twin brothers, better known as the Quay Brothers
or the Brothers Quay. They are seen as influential stop-motion animators.
 The brothers work and live in England and have been since 1969 as they moved
to study at the Royal College of Art in London after studying illustration (Timothy)
and film (Stephen) at the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the
Arts in Philadelphia where they made their first puppet films.
 After the release of prize-winning Nocturnia Artificialia in 1980, they founded
Koninck Studios in London together with Keith Griffins, whom they had met at
the Royal College of Art.

3. What got them into animation?
 Before turning to film, the Quays worked as professional illustrators. The first
edition of Anthony Burgess' novel The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End,
included their drawings before the start of each chapter.
 After designing book covers for book cover commissions they did while in
Philadelphia, the Quays have created designs for a variety of publications that
seem to reflect not only their own interests in particular authors, covers for Italo
Calvino, Louis-Ferdinand Céline or Mark le Fanu's study of the films of Andrei
Tarkovsky, but also in themes and motifs that these authors develop.

4. Animation Style
 The majority of their animation films show puppets made of doll parts and other
organic and inorganic materials, often partially disassembled, in a dark, moody
atmosphere.
 The Street of Crocodiles(1986) is considered one of their best known works.
Based on the short novel by the Polish author and artist Bruno Schulz. The short
film was selected by the director and animator Terry Gilliam as one of the ten
best animated films of all time.
 Their films have barely any meaningful spoken dialogue with only a few films as
exceptions. The Comb (From the Museums of Sleep/1990) use multilingual
background gibberish that is not meant to be understood.

5. Some of their most notable works
Street of Crocodiles excerpt
https://youtu.be/fNOfsJz4TjA
Rain Dance (shown on Sesame Street)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KPh7PI
Wt2s
Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=ehfRYQ0K-vM