Ed Emshwiller (born: Edmund Alexander Emshwiller) studied painting, illustration and design at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After he graduated he went on to study at L'École des Beaux Arts in Paris and the Art Students League in New York City.

He soon became an abstract expressionist painter with an increasing number of successful shows behind him. A self-assured kinetic assertiveness and choreographic impressibility distinguish his paintings from this period, while they betoken his fascination with dance. Evidence of this is clearly shown in the artist's first experimental film "Paintings by Ed Emshwiller (1955-1958)" (In the film images of dancing bodies are interplayed with Emshwiller's abstract...