Bruce Conner (American, 1933 – 2008) was renowned for his work in assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography, among other disciplines. Growing up in Wichita, Kansas, he was interested in art from an early age. Conner first became known as a key figure in the San Francisco Beat scene in the late 1950s, making assemblages from women’s nylon stockings, parts of furniture, broken dolls, fur, costume jewelry, paint, photographs, and candles. These works expressed a vehement rejection of the optimistic, consumerist spirit of mainstream American society. In the late 1950s, Conner also began an influential parallel career as an experimental filmmaker. Throughout his fifty-year career, Conner maintained his quality of unpredictability and diversity, abandoning a given type or style of work whenever he felt he was becoming too closely identified with it.