Background Artists

Pete Alvarado

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"Pete Alvarado was born in 1920 and was raised in Glendale, California. He attended Chouinard Art Institute. Soon after graduating from art school he was hired at Disney as an animation assistant and first worked on Snow White and Dumbo. He worked mos..."

Sadie Friedlander Bodin

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"Sadie Bodin was an extremely influential animator, being the first to picket an animation studio during the fight for animation workers' rights in the 1930s. Bodin was also one of the few women animators to move up into managerial positions, becoming..."

Claude Coates

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"Coates began his career with The Walt Disney Company in 1935 after earning a B.A. degree in architecture and fine arts from USC and studying at the Chouinard Art Institute. As a background painter at the Disney Studios, he contributed to the backgrou..."

Émile (Eugène Jean Louis) Courtet

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"Émile Cohl was an important early independent cartoonist and animator, who was a caricaturist in the "Incoherent Movement" and has often been called "The Father of the Animated Cartoon.""

Ferdinand Horvath

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"Ferdinand Horvath was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1891. Horvath was an animator and illustrator at various major animation studios such as Fable Studios, Inc., Walt Disney, and Screen Gems (Columbia Pictures) Horvath died of a stroke on Novem..."

Paul Julian

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"Paul Julian was an American background and layout artist, art director and production designer whose work is best known in Warner Bros. classic Looney Tunes cartoons. He worked primar..."

Bob Kuwahara

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"Bob Kuwahara was born in Tokyo, Japan on August 12, 1901. His family moved to the United States in 1910. He was a Japanese-American animator and writer who is best known for creating the Terrytoons character Hashimoto-san, a mouse who is a judo in..."

Georges Méliès

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"George Méliès was one of the earliest filmmakers, and one of the few who experimented with the vast trick and illusionist possibilities of film, inventing a wide range of cinematic techniques. These techniques include substitution splices, multiple..."

Jim Simon

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"Jim Simon is an artist and animator who created numerous commercials, public relation films, and entertainment and educational shorts during the 1970s and 1980s. Once dubbed “the Black Walt Disney” (even though he did not embrace the title), Simo..."

Tyrus Wong

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"The recently deceased Tyrus Wong was an incredible landscape artist, he worked as a storyboard staff artist for Hollywood studios in the 1930's to 60's. Wong will be remembered for his work on Bambi, and was named a Disney Legend in 2001. "