Ferdinand Huszti Horvath

Animation Designer, Animator, Background Artist, Character Designer, Illustrator, Layout Artist, Storyboard Artist

28/07/1891

11/11/1973

Budapest, Hungary

Biography

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 November 11, 1973.

Family and early life

He immigrated to the United States in 1921 and worked at a bunch of odd jobs in New York. He then went into set design and stage effects as well as drawing for magazine publications and book illustrations before entering the animation industry.

Career outline

In 1927, Horvath began drawing for Paul Terry’s production of Aesop’s Fables, a series of animated shorts, and continued animating for the company (called Fable Studios, Inc.) for six years.

After he left Fable Studios, he joined Walt Disney Studios in 1933 and moved to Los Angeles to work as a sketch artist, modeler, and member of Disney’s creative team. He worked at Disney from 1934 to 1937. Horvath took the role of an illustrator rather more than as an animator, as he was often making drawings in several departments under Disney such as advertising, book publications, character design, background and layout illustration, and 3D modelling.

After Horvath left Disney, he spent a year between 1938 to 1939 at Screen Gems (now Columbia Pictures) to make layouts and models for Scrappy, Krazy Kat, and Color Rhapsody shorts. In 1940, he made puppets for George Pal’s animated series Puppetoons.

Filmography

References:

Korkis, Jim. “Who Was Ferdinand Horvath?” Cartoon Research, 2020.