Table Of ContentThis page intentionally left blank
a biography Roger Horrocks
Auckland
University Press
to Shirley
for help & inspiration
First published 2001
Reprinted2002
Auckland University Press
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland
New Zealand
http://www.auckland.ac.nz/aup
© Roger Horrocks, 2001
isbn 1 86940 247 2
Publication is assisted by
This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of
private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the
Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without
prior permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Sarah Maxey
Front cover photograph: Len Lye in Sydney, c.1925,
photographed by Mary Brown. Courtesy Len Lye Foundation.
Back cover: Strips of direct film from Colour Cry (1953).
Courtesy Len Lye Foundation.
Printed by Spectrum Print, Christchurch
contents
Introduction 1
part one sense games
(New Zealand, Australia, Samoa)
1 The Flash 7
2 Cape Campbell 12
3 The First Sketchbook 17
4 Composing Motion 23
5 Modernism 30
6 Hei-Tiki 38
7 Sydney 45
8 Kinetic Theatre 52
9 Samoa 57
10 Deportation 63
11 Jack Ellitt 68
part two ‘individual happiness now’
( England)
12 Stoker Sculptor 79
13 Batiks 85
14 Tusalava 90
15 Jane Thompson 96
16 The Seven and Five Society 101
17 Robert Graves and Laura Riding 107
18 Mallorca 114
19 A Wedding 121
20 Peanut Vendor 127
21 A Colour Box 133
22 The Birth of the Robot 142
23 Rainbow Dance 148
24 Public and Private 153
25 Surrealism 159
26 The English Walt Disney 163
27 The World and Ourselves 171
28 Individual Happiness Now 175
29 Going to the Top 184
30 War Films 189
31 Kill or Be Killed 198
part three ‘free radical’
(USA, New Zealand)
32 Willkie 211
33 A Rorschach Test 217
34 Ann Hindle 223
35 Paintings and Poems 230
36 Shoe of My Mind 238
37 Gracious Living with Little Money 245
38 Madison Avenue 253
39 Rhythm 258
40 Free Radicals 263
41 Going on Strike 268
42 Tangibles 273
43 Dance of the Machines 280
44 Sartorial Thrift-Shop Style 291
45 The Movement Movement 300
46 A Flip and Two Twisters 305
47 Life in the Sixties 315
48 The Snake God 324
49 Genetics 330
50 The Absolute Truth of the Happiness Acid 337
51 Utopias 348
52 Homes 352
53 New Plymouth 360
54 Relationships 367
55 Direct Film Apprentices 371
56 Quitting the Lot 376
Epilogue 381
Acknowledgements 389
Notes 397
Index 430
This page intentionally left blank
introduction
Len Lye stood out even within the colourful worlds of art and film for his
singularity. In the words of painter Julian Trevelyan, ‘He was like a man from
Mars who saw everything from a different viewpoint, and it was this that made
him original.’1 Lye’s exuberance, his unique taste in clothes, his quirky turn of
phrase, and his free-wheeling life style made him a legendary figure among
fellow artists and film-makers. These were outward signs of the deep and
uncompromising commitment to experiment and risk-taking in the arts that
sustained him for more than 60 years as he applied his innovative approach to
film, sculpture, painting, photography and writing.
Lye was a member of many important art groups, starting with the Seven
and Five Society in London in the 1920s and the international Surrealist
movement in the 1930s. In the same decade he was part of John Grierson’s GPO
Film Unit, and contributed as a writer and artist to notable avant-garde
magazines and publishing ventures. Moving to New York he became involved
with the Abstract Expressionist painters and the underground film-makers of
the 1950s. In the following decade he played an important role in the
international upsurge in kinetic art. He was never tempted to slow down and
just a few months before his death at the age of 78 he completed a remarkable
series of paintings and one of his most radical films.
As the first account to bring together the many facets of Lye’s eventful and
singular life, this biography suggests that his personality was as remarkable as
his art. Ann Lye (his wife) once said, ‘Len’s greatest creation was himself’, and
the poet Alastair Reid felt similarly that ‘his day to day life was some of his best
work’, making him ‘the least boring person who ever existed’. As I researched
the biography I found that the mention of Lye’s name almost always produced a
warm welcome and a rush of anecdotes about (in the words of sculptor Kenneth
Snelson) ‘this crazy, excited and exciting guy’.2 Photographer Barbara Ker-
Seymer spoke for many of his friends when she warned me it was an impossible
challenge to capture such a personality on paper.
I was also drawn to attempt the biography by the unusual breadth of Lye’s
journey through twentieth century art. He was one of the rare examples of an
experimental artist able to appeal not only to artists and critics but also to a broad
9
