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Len Lye was an innovative animator who developed the notion of painting directly on the film in his avant-garde short Color Box (1935). Lye was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. As a young man, he spent time in the South Seas and was greatly influenced by Polynesian art. Lye came to England in the late '20s and began his first experiments with animation in 1929. In 1944, Lye emigrated to the U.S. and eventually became an American citizen. He tried his hand at live-action short documentaries through the early '50s, but these films were undistinguished and did little at the box office. He retired from filmmaking in the late '50s and devoted the rest of his life to sculpting and painting.