Lou Bunin was a prominent puppeteer

Puppeteer

A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, such as a puppet, in real time to create the illusion of life. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the audience. A puppeteer can operate a puppet indirectly by the use of strings, rods, wires, electronics or directly by his or...

, an artist, and pioneer of stop-motion animation in the latter half of the twentieth century. While working as a mural artist under Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...

 in Mexico City in 1926, Bunin created political puppet shows using marionettes including a production of Eugene O'Neill

Eugene O'Neill

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...

's The Hairy Ape

The Hairy Ape

-Plot :The play tells the story of a brutish, unthinking laborer known as Yank, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich...

. Photographer Tina Modotti

Tina Modotti

Tina Modotti was an Italian photographer, model, actress, and revolutionary political activist.- Early life :Modotti was born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini in Udine, Friuli, Italy...

 took many pictures of Bunin and his puppets, including her renowned work, "The Hands of the Puppeteer."

On his return to the United States, Bunin created animated three-dimensional puppets to appear in the 1939 World's Fair in New York. His 1943 political stop-motion satire, Bury the Axis, is well known. Later Bunin landed a job with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

 where he created the stop-motion Prologue to the famed film, Ziegfeld Follies (MGM). He was subsequently fired as a casualty of McCarthyism

McCarthyism

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

.

Bunin went on to create a feature length stop-motion animation film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland in 1949, starring Carol Marsh

Carol Marsh

Carol Marsh , born Norma Simpson, was an English film actress known for winning the part of Rose in the film Brighton Rock after thousands auditioned for the part....

 as a live-action Alice. A lawsuit from Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 prevented it from being widely released in the U.S., so that it would not compete with Disney's forthcoming 1951 animated version. Further, the film was kept out of Britain as his representation of the Queen of Hearts was seen as too close and too unkind to Queen Victoria. The film was recently restored with 12 additional minutes and shown at museums around the US, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Creator of the popular Talking Utica Club Beer Mugs and a plethora of memorable short films, Bunin died of a stroke in the early nineties.