Bruce Bickford

Bruce Bickford is man who was born in Seattle in 1947 and who started animating at the age of 17. Now 64, his 2D line animation is described as remarkable and his works in claymation have made him legendary.

However, this legendary status did not come into existence until 1973, when a friend introduced Bickford to rock musician Frank Zappa. The following year Zappa called Bickford back and eventually employed him. The resulting collaboration of two great artists is history. For six and a half years, Bruce was paid to do what he loves most – create.

Bickford was prolific in this era. More importantly, he developed the hallucinogenic style of animation that made him a cult icon of underground stop-motion. Using incredibly labor-intensive replacement animation, Bickford made people and objects appear from and disappear to the landscape. He morphed figures relentlessly and unpredictably. A character might suddenly become the landscape and the background might suddenly become the character at any moment.

Bickford's animations depict surreal scenes based on his unique worldview, and as a result of this, his work is extremely subjective in its content and concepts, with some disturbing and shocking imagery. Bruce Bickford is an original thinker, an iconoclast, and a visionary artist of the highest caliber. His work is important and deserves an audience.