Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs. With the engineer Ian Sommerville he also invented the Dreamachine, a flicker device designed as an art object to be viewed with the eyes closed. It was in painting and drawing, however, that Gysin devoted his greatest efforts, creating calligraphic works inspired by cursive Japanese "grass" script and Arabic script. Burroughs later stated that "Brion Gysin was the only man I ever respected."
Wikidata
Q917570
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Getty record
Introduction
American painter and writer of English birth. As a youth he spent time in Kansas City, MO, and Edmonton, Alberta, and briefly attended school in England before studying painting at the Sorbonne in Paris (1933–5). In 1934 his drawings were to have been exhibited at the Galerie aux Quatre Chemins in Paris alongside works by Dadaists and Surrealists, but they were removed by Paul Eluard on André Breton’s orders. He later lived in New York City, Tangier, and Paris, where he spent the rest of his life. He collaborated with William S. Burroughs on books, and together they invented the 'cut-up' technique. His paintings involved a brushed calligraphic stroke, and he notably invented the 'Dreamachine' a device intended to create stroboscopic optical effects.
Nationalities
American, English, Canadian, British, French
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Author, Cinematographer, Writer, Poet, Media Artist, Painter, Photographer, Sculptor
Name
Brion Gysin
Ulan
500089445
Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

9 works online

Exhibitions

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].