Artifacts animate exhibit at Hoyt

Staff report

NEW CASTLE, PA.

The Hoyt Center for the Arts has partnered with the Toonseum in Pittsburgh to curate its current exhibition, “The Art of Animation,” on display in the main galleries through Aug. 24.

The exhibit includes a range of production cels and drawings that span generations, from the roots of animation in vaudeville with “Gertie the Dinosaur” (1914), to contemporary classics such as Sponge Bob and The Simpsons.

Movement in art can be traced back to the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians, who used sequences of images to tell a story much as a modern comic strip does today.

Inventors began experimenting with illusion by putting pictures in motion with simple toys such as the thaumatrope, a disc printed with an image on each side and twirled on a string, popular in the early 1800s.

The phenakistoscoe and zoetrope followed in the 1830s, offering the illusion of movement through sequenced images spun on a wheel and viewed through a slit. An example of a zoetrope is included in the exhibit.

Other attempts to create animation can be found in the flip book introduced in the 1860s and sequenced photography appearing at the turn of the century.

The Hoyt’s timeline begins with “Gertie,” a breakthrough film developed by Winsor McCay for the vaudeville stage. McCay produced nearly every one of the 10,000 drawings used in the film that he interacted with in his act, pretending to speak to the dinosaur who responded with changes in expression and position. This film is considered the first to combine live action with hand-drawn animation.

Later that year, Earl Hurd patented his cel animation technique which allowed the artist to change his drawings on clear celluloid sheets over a stationary background. Some of the earliest characters included Felix the Cat, Popeye and Superman.

Visitors will also find examples of painted backgrounds, production drawings, a small bronze of Fat Albert given to Bill Cosby during the run of the “Cosby Kids,” an animated Tweety & Sylvester piece, and an original score to a Roadrunner episode.

The Golden Age of Animation arguably began with Walt Disney’s “Snow White” in 1937. It was followed by such films as “Pinocchio,” “Fantasia” and “Bambi” throughout the 1940s. These groundbreaking films brought forth the realistic development of characters in feature animated film, while Warner Brothers began introducing contortions of reality in fast-paced, slapstick satires in short films that would change Saturday morning TV.

Examples from Hanna-Barbera (Flintsones, Scooby Doo), DCI Studios, Fleischer Studios, Filmation and others are also included in the exhibit.