Marie Menken was a U.S. painter who became a filmmaker in 1945 with her first work, Visual Variations on Noguchi, a rhythmic exploration of Noguchi's curvaceous sculptures. It was the first avant-garde film of its kind. Along with Maya Deren, Menken and her husband Willard Maas formed the basis of the avant-garde movement in '40s New York.Her work was noted for it's absence of obvious symbolism; it is also not drawn from literature unlike other avant-garde films of its time.
