Stephen Quay

Biography

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.

Directed

1. Street of Crocodiles (1986) — Director
2. Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life (1995) — Director
3. The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer (1984) — Director
4. The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005) — Director
5. Stille Nacht I: Dramolet (1988) — Director
6. Stille Nacht II: Are We Still Married? (1992) — Director
7. The Comb (1991) — Director
8. In Absentia (2000) — Director
9. This Unnameable Little Broom (1985) — Director
10. Anamorphosis (1993) — Director
11. Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies (1988) — Director
12. Nocturna Artificialia (1979) — Director
13. Stille Nacht III: Tales from Vienna Woods (1993) — Director
14. Stille Nacht IV: Can't Go Wrong Without You (1993) — Director
15. The Calligrapher (1991) — Director
16. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (2025) — Director
17. Maska (2010) — Director
18. The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection (2003) — Director
19. Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum) (2011) — Director
20. Tales of the Brothers Quay (1987) — Director
21. Unmistaken Hands: Ex Voto F.H. (2013) — Director
22. Stille Nacht V: Dog Door (2001) — Director
23. Janáček: Intimate Excursions (1983) — Director
24. Eurydice: She, So Beloved (2007) — Director
25. Igor Stravinsky: The Paris Years Chez Pleyel 1920-1929 (1982) — Director
26. Songs for Dead Children (2003) — Director
27. Alice in Not So Wonderland (2007) — Director
28. The Summit (1995) — Director
29. The Sandman (2000) — Director
30. Punch and Judy: Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy (1981) — Director
31. The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderode (1981) — Director
32. Inventorium of Traces (2009) — Director
33. Wonderwood: Comme des garçons (2010) — Director
34. Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers (2007) — Director
35. The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer: Prague's Alchemist of Film (1984) — Director
36. VadeMecum (2021) — Director
37. Sonic Cinema: Sparklehorse (2001) — Director
38. Quay Brothers: The Short Films 1979-2003 (2004) — Director
39. 11 Preliminary Orbits Around Planet Lem (2021) — Director
40. Rain Dance (1988) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Quay (2015) — Self
2. The Falls (1982) — Ipson Fallari
3. The Phantom Museum: Random Forays Into the Vaults of Sir Henry Wellcome's Medical Collection (2003) — Librarian
4. The Bug Trainer (2009) — Self - stop-motion animator
5. The Music of Zdeněk Liška (2017) — Self
6. The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin (2015)
7. Inside The Institute (2010)
8. The Art of Time (2009)
9. The Making of "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes" (2006)
10. Behind the Scenes with the Quay Brothers (2011) — Self