Purple Television
[10/14/2014] : art
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Silence (1968) by Jules Engel
Jules Engel is a pioneer in the field of animation as a visual art form. Born in Budapest in 1909, Engel grew up outside of Chicago and then moved to Los Angeles as a young man where he successfully created dual careers as an abstract artist and experimental filmmaker.
After serving as a filmmaker for the U.S. Air Force in World War II, he joined United Productions of America as part of the team that created Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mr. Magoo. Throughout the 1960s, Engel was absorbed in painting and abstract filmmaking; in 1970 he became the founding director of the Abstract Experimental Animation Department at the California Institute of the Arts, where he taught for more than three decades and trained a generation of contemporary animators. “My work is abstract,” he said, “but it contains an organic element that brings people closer to their inner feelings.”
