Willard Maas

American filmmaker and poet Willard Maas was born in Lindsay, California, before moving to New York City where he began his career as a writer. Maas earned a BA from Long Island University and received Poetry magazine’s Guarantors Prize in 1938. He published two collections of poetry: Fire Testament (1935) and Concerning the Young (1938) before beginning a career as an experimental film maker with a series of “film poems.” During World War II, Maas served as a private in the U.S. Army, and afterward returned to live in New York City, where he was active in the art scene. It is possible that Maas and his wife, filmmaker Marie Menken, may have been a part of the inspiration for the married couple in Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962). 

Maas was considered by filmmaker Jonas Mekas to be “one of the important pioneers of the avant-garde film” and artist Andy Warhol—who was friends with Maas—considered him to be “the last of the great bohemians.” After a career teaching English at Wagner College, Maas died in 1971.