Mary Ellen Bute (November 21, 1906 – October 17, 1983)[1] was a pioneer American film animator, producer, and director.

A native of Houston,[3] Mary Ellen Bute studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,[4] then stage lighting at Yale University's Drama School.

She worked with Leon Theremin and Thomas Wilfred and was also influenced by the abstract animated films of Oskar Fischinger.

[6] Before she began making films, she gave a lecture to the New York Musicological Society in 1932 titled 'Light as an Art Material and its Possible Synchronization with Sound.

'[7] In this talk, she discussed major trends in painting turning toward abstraction and dynamism, and that she believed that art should be more kinetic, to which she looked to music as the solution.