Stephen Quay

June 17, 1947

Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA

Stephen Quay was born in 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied illustration at the Philadelphia College of Art and later continued his education at the Royal College of Art in London, where he met his twin brother Timothy and began collaborating in animation. Together, they founded Atelier Koninck and produced their first experimental short films in the late 1970s. Throughout his career, Stephen has directed and co-directed short films, feature films, and stop-motion projects, including Nocturna Artificialia (1979), Street of Crocodiles (1986), Institute Benjamenta (1995), and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005). His work is characterized by dreamlike, detailed, and symbolic worlds, often using dolls and carefully crafted objects to create surreal and unsettling atmospheres.

Poster for The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection

Stephen Quay

The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection

In Absentia

Stille Nacht III: Tales from Vienna Woods

Stille Nacht IV: Can't Go Wrong Without You

The Comb

Anamorphosis

Stille Nacht I: Dramolet

Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies

Street of Crocodiles

This Unnameable Little Broom

The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer