William Moritz, a longtime California Institute of the Arts professor who was an authority on abstract animation and the work of experimental filmmaker Oskar Fischinger, has died. He was 63.
Mr. Moritz, who lived in Hollywood, died Friday at his sister’s home in Mokelumne Hill, Calif., after a long battle with cancer.
His death coincided with the publication of “Optical Poetry: The Life and Work of Oskar Fischinger,” his full-length biography on the avant-garde animator and painter who fled Nazi Germany for Hollywood in the 1930s.
Fischinger, who blended color, music, motion and imagery to make “visual music,” was considered one of the most prolific and influential artists of the experimental film movement. He perhaps was best known for his contributions to the “Toccata and Fugue” section of Disney’s “Fantasia,” one of the most experimental films in popular cinema history.
For three decades Mr. Moritz worked closely with Fischinger’s widow, Elfriede, and her family to archive his films and rescue them from obscurity.
