Helena Smith Dayton

Helena Smith Dayton
Dayton in her studio
Born 1883 (1883)
Died 1960 (aged 76–77)
Nationality American
Known for Animation
Notable work Romeo and Juliet (1917)

Helena Smith Dayton (1883–1960) was an American film maker, painter and sculptor working in New York City who used fledgling stop motion and clay animation techniques in the 1910s and 1920s, one of the earliest animators (and the first American woman) to experiment with clay animation. Her "clay cartoons" were humorous in nature, and Dayton was featured in the "Humorist Salons" in New York City.[1] She spent World War I in Paris working with the YMCA as a canteen director.[2] She was a published author, ranging in genre from journalism to plays to a guide to New York City.[3]

Career

Art and animation

Dayton began sculpting around 1914 while living in Greenwich Village in New York City.[4] She described how she began to sculpt while she worked as a writer: "I was sitting at my typewriter, when my fingers began to itch for something to mould." She bought art clay and began to sculpt it. "From then on, I tried to fashion people as I saw them, the humorous always being uppermost in my thoughts."[1] Her "grotesque" figurines graced magazine covers and accompanied her short stories.[4] A humorist, she specialized in creating clay models of prominent citizens.[2] She described her work as "gigglesome bits of statuary."[1]

She began experimenting with "clay cartoons" in 1916. For one foot of film, Dayton created 16 poses for her sculpted figures. This meant that a reel of film contained around 16,000 separate poses.[1] The first documented public screening of some of her animated shorts took place on March 25, 1917 at the Strand Theater in New York City.[4] Later in 1917, she released her adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, one of the first stop motion films in history. Before the animated portion of the film, the introduction featured a shot of Dayton sculpting the clay figures.[5] Her forays in sculpture and animation had contributed greatly to her income by this point: her bank account contained $12,000 in 1917, the equivalent of $256,000 in 2018 dollars.[1] Though newspapers and magazines in her day covered her work extensively and in detail, it is unclear whether there are any surviving copies of Romeo and Juliet, or whether Dayton produced any subsequent animated films.[6] This may be due to the onset of World War I, during which she worked abroad as part of the war effort, putting her artistic work on hold.[4]

After working as a canteen director for the YMCA in Paris during World War I, she created sculpted figures depicting scenes in France. These were featured in an exhibition by the Society of Illustrators (of which she was a member) in 1922 in New York City.[7]

Later in life, she took up painting.[2] She exhibited her paintings in 1943 at the Montross Gallery.[8] One New York Times art critic praised her work, calling her portraits in this exhibition "unflattering and sound, with a mining for individual character."[9]

Writing

Before she was an animator, Dayton worked as a reporter in Hartford, Connecticut.[2]

Dayton co-authored two guidebooks with Louise Bascom Barratt: A Book of Entertainments and Theatricals (1923) and New York in Seven Days (1926).[4]

Later in her career, she took up playwriting.[3] She frequently collaborated with Louise Bascom Barratt. With Barratt in 1926, she co-wrote The Sweet Buy and Buy, which was performed on stage in 1927 (produced by James Gleason and Earle Boothe) and published as a book.[10][11] With Barratt again, she co-wrote Hot Water; it opened in 1929 at Lucille La Verne's theater in New York City, with La Verne in the leading role.[12] In 1931, Casanova's Son, also co-written with Barratt, debuted in New York City.[13]

Personal life

Dayton was married to Fred Erving Dayton, a writer and publisher.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Johnson, Mindy (2017). Ink & paint: the women of Walt Disney's animation. p. 23. ISBN 9781484727812.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Mrs. Helena Dayton (Obituary)". The New York Times. 1960-02-23. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  3. 1 2 3 "Helena Smith Dayton: the Greenwich Village Bookshop Door". Harry Ransom Centre. University of Texas. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Douglass, Jason Cody. "Artist, Author, and Pioneering Motion Picture Animator: The Career of Helena Smith Dayton". journal.animationstudies.org. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
  5. ↑ "Prominent Sculptor in Film". The Moving Picture World: 1164. 24 November 1917.
  6. ↑ Douglass, Jason Cody (September 24, 2018). "Helena Smith Dayton: An Early Animation Pioneer Whose Films You Have Never Seen". Animation Studies 2.0. Retrieved 24 September 2018.
  7. ↑ "ILLUSTRATORS OPEN SHOW WITH A 'PARTY'; Exhibit Their 'Double Lives' in Work and an Amusing Movie, 'Through Hollywood.'". The New York Times. 1922-05-13. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  8. ↑ "Art Notes". The New York Times. 1943-04-20. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  9. ↑ Devree, Howard (1943-04-25). "A Reviewer's Notebook". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  10. ↑ "Theatrical Notes". The New York Times. 1926-07-22. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  11. ↑ "ANNOUNCING THE SHOWS OF THE NEW THEATRICAL SEASON; A List of the Sundry Entertainments That May Be Expected to Open in New York Between Now and Next Summer". The New York Times. 1927-08-07. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  12. ↑ ""Hot Water" to Open on Jan. 21. - The New York Times". The New York Times. 1929. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  13. ↑ "Theatrical Notes". The New York Times. 1931-08-25. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-06-04.

Further reading

  • Douglass, Jason Cody. "Artist, Author, and Pioneering Motion Picture Animator: The Career of Helena Smith Dayton." Animation Studies Online Journal, 2017.
  • Douglass, Jason Cody. "Helena Smith Dayton: An Early Animation Pioneer Whose Films You Have Never Seen." Animation Studies 2.0, September 2018.
  • Tayler, Richard. The Encyclopedia of Animation Techniques. Running Press, Philadelphia, 1996. ISBN 1-56138-531-X
  • Lord, Peter and Brian Sibley. Creating 3-D Animation. Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1998. ISBN 0-8109-1996-6
  • Sibley, Brian. Chicken Run: Hatching the Movie. Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2000. ISBN 0-8109-4124-4
  • Smith, Dave. Disney A to Z. Hyperion Books, New York, 1998. ISBN 0-7868-6391-9
  • Maltin, Leonard Movie and Video Guide. Signet Reference Paperbacks, New American Library, Penguin Putnam, New York, 2006.
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