The Brothers Quay

Brother Quay


Stephen and Timothy Quay are American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators. 
Their collaborative stop-motion animations are extremely well known for the ways in which they have been influential to the field. 
The Quay Brothers would create films that the critics would often call surreal and which usually involve inanimate objects coming to life.
The Brothers Quay are two of the most remarkable film-makers of our time. Working in collaboration since at least 1969, when they first moved to London from the United States, their stop-action films have introduced a generation of viewers to a lyrical darkness not often associated with animation. Influenced heavily by Central European writers and artists their work reflects the dark psychology resulting from a century of industrial warfare, surrealist art and dialectical politics.
Influenced by a tradition of Eastern European animation, the Quays display a passion for detail, a breathtaking command of color and texture, and an uncanny use of focus and camera movement that make their films unique and instantly recognisable. 
It is during their time studying in Philadelphia that they would take film courses and in doing so would see for the first time the surrealist movies of Luis Buñuel.