Marie Menken was born Marie Menkevicius in New York City on May 25, 1909, the daughter of Catholic Lithuanian immigrants. She grew up in Brooklyn with a brother and a sister, in a home used to frequent financial difficulties. Both she and her sister Adele later changed their surname to Menken. Marie Menken and Willard Maas had got married in 1937, moving into a Brooklyn penthouse at 62 Montague Street which they would inhabit until their deaths. She died on December 29, 1970. Four days after her death, on January 2, 1971, Willard Maas died.
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Marie Menken was an influential American experimental filmmaker and painter who emerged as a foundational figure in the mid-century New York underground scene.
She is known for directing avant-garde short films such as Visual Variations on Noguchi, Glimpse of the Garden, and Go! Go! Go!, alongside appearances in works by Andy Warhol.
She creates lyrical, hand-held experimental short films that function as direct extensions of painting, utilizing rhythm, collage, and kinetic camera movement.
