Len Lye
by Roger Horrocks
Category: Biography & Autobiography

Len Lye: A Biography tells for the first time the story of a unique, charismatic artist who was an innovator in many areas - film, kinetic sculpture, painting, photography and poetry. Born in New Zealand in 1901, Len Lye gained an international reputation in the arts and had friendships with many famous people - including Dylan Thomas, Robert Graves, Gertrude Stein, John Grierson, Norman McLaren, Oskar Fischinger, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Laura Riding, Stan Brakhage, and the artists of the New York School. A colorful bohemian, Lye lived in London from 1926 to 1944 (where he made highly original hand-painted films for John Grierson's GPO Film Unit), then moved to New York for the last 36 years of his life. Describing Len Lye as a 'trailblazer' and a 'one-man modern art movement' in Sight & Sound, Ian Francis also celebrated this superb biography as 'the definitive piece of Lye scholarship'.