Oscar Fischinger was a German artist, film-maker, animator. Born in 1900 in Frankfurt and trained as an architect and engineer, he developed great interest in painting and animation in his early 20s. By the age of 22 he was already running a small animation studio in Munich or Berlin (there is no agreement between some commentators), and by 1935 he has already had over 30 films under his belt.

Fischinger became quite famous after he started to produce musical animated commercials (e.g. Murrati Cigarette Commercials), and some of Fischinger’s commercial films proved very popular with the general public in Germany.

After the Nazi government came to power in Germany, the making of abstract art was no longer allowed, so Fischinger was no longer safe working on his films. At the same time, in 1936, he received an offer from Paramount to come and work in Hollywood. While in America, at some point he was invited to work at Disney studios. Oscar Fischinger took part in the production of Disney's classic animated film Fantasia. However his career at Disney lasted only 9 months, as he couldn’t bear the commercial spirit of the company and as a result left to work on his experimental productions.

Around 1950 Fischinger also devised his own 'colour organ' named Lumigraph. It was a machine playing sounds and lights, and served as a perfect instrument for a one-man show. Fischinger did a short tour in America, performing various classical pieces, and many were impressed by the amazing combination of music and spectacular images. Fischinger hoped to make Lumigraph a commercial product, widely available for anybody. With its help he wanted to educate children about music and image, or to sell it to adults as an entertainment device. After Fischinger’s death, his widow Elfriede did a few performances with the Lumigraph, and his son Conrad even built two more machines in different sizes. In 1964 Lumigraph was used in sci-fi film The Time Travellers, where it became a 'love machine'. Today the instrument is displayed at Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt, and is being played occasionally.