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PRESS RELEASE OCT0BER 26TH 2024
TO UNDERLINE THE 150 YEARS OF RAOUL BARRÉ’S BIRTH
THE RAOUL BARRÉ FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES THAT IT
WILL ADD A 10,000$ SCHOLARSHIP IN 2024
Gaspard Fauteux, founding president of the Raoul-Barré Foundation and grandson of the Quebec multidisciplinary artist Raoul Barré, is proud to announce that in order to worthily celebrate the 150th birth anniversary (January 29, 1874) of the painter and pioneer of animated film, the Foundation will award an annual grant of $10,000 starting in the fall of 2024. The recurring grant aims to reward a project in order to support its development and completion.
The Foundation aims to be a development agent to encourage research and creation in the different artistic disciplines in which Barré has been interested throughout his career, particularly animated films and comic strips. This grant is in addition to assistance amounting to $4,000 per year over five years, for the holding of the” Sommets du cinéma d’animation,” an international festival dedicated to animation in all its forms. Under this agreement, the award for best Canadian student film is now known as the Raoul-Barré Prize.
Gaspard Fauteux founder of the Raoul Barré Foundation mentions
“Otto Messmer, creator of Felix the Cat, remembers some of his prophecies which in 1914, fifteen years before the advent of sound and eight years before that of color, could only have passed for futuristic daydreams. "Barré once offered a big dinner to the animation filmmakers. It was the only time that all the animators from New York were together. Until then each studio remained in its own corner. At dessert they forced him to make a speech. Although cartoons were still in its very early stages. Barré predicted that they would soon speak and use sound effects. The entire audience burst into loud laughter. Everyone thought that he must have been completely crazy to imagine that. He even added that the cartoons would all be in color. And everyone still started laughing at this idea as if it were a crazy dream. all this was achieved relatively quickly.
John Harbour, Doctoral student in cinema at Laval University Member of the board of directors of the Raoul Barré Foundation mentions
“Raoul Barré can be a source of inspiration and, above all, motivation for Quebec filmmakers. Indeed, if being a French-speaking person in a predominantly English-speaking country can represent a difficulty and can sometimes be a source of discouragement, Barré showed (like Xavier Dolan or Monia Chokri in contemporary times) that it was possible to go as far as our dreams allow us and that imagination and talent are two notions that know no boundaries. »
ABOUT RAOUL BARRÉ
Raoul Barré was born January 29th 1874 in Montreal. He led a career as a painter until the end of his days, some of his paintings being today kept in prestigious institutions. He made his debut in caricature and illustration in various Quebec newspapers in 1894. Also a cartoonist, he published “Pour un dinner de Noël” in La Presse (1902), the first Quebec comic strip published in a major newspaper, and the series Les contes by Father Rhault in La Patrie du Samedi (1906-1908). However, it is as a pioneer of American animated cinema that he is most recognized internationally today. Indeed, Barré settled in the United States in the early 1910s and founded one of the very first animation studios in the world in New York. There he directed and produced several animated short films from the series Animated Grouch Chasers (1915-1916), Phables (1916) and Mutt and Jeff (1916-1920). He briefly reappeared in the animated film industry around 1926-1927 to work at Pat Sullivan's studio on the Felix the Cat series. He died in 1932.
ABOUT THE RAOUL-BARRÉ FOUNDATION
The Raoul-Barré Foundation's mission is to ensure the sustainability of the legacy of the artist Raoul Barré by contributing in particular to the development of knowledge about cinema, comics, painting and caricature. Painter, illustrator, filmmaker and cartoonist, Raoul Barré marked the beginning of the 20th century with his innovative ideas. The spirit of this versatile artist will thus be able to influence the young animation directors of tomorrow.
To learn more, visit raoulbarre.ca.
Media contacts:
For the Raoul-Barré Foundation
Gaspard Fauteux
Founder and President
Raoul-Barré Foundation
514-578-9561
gasparfauteux@bell.net
John Harbor
Member of the Board of Directors
1 (581) 307-3065
John.harbour.1@ulaval.ca
ANIMATED CARTOONS
Goldwyn Bray Releases, Walt Lantz, Feb 14, 1920
By John Adcock
“Into this period [1917] entered the International Feature Syndicate,
formed by William Randolph Hearst. He placed Gregory La Cava in charge, who
immediately set about improving the cartoons. He increased the number of drawings
from the 2,000 of the average cartoon of the time to 3,500, resulting in
smoother animation. Further, he changed the animation of the characters from
the stiff, angular movements of the legs and arms to a smooth “rubbery”
animation such as is used at present. La Cava also discontinued the “bubble”
title for the conventional title of the silent days.” – ‘The History of the
Animated Cartoon,’ Earl Theisen, International Projectionist, Vol.6
No.2, November 1933
In 1915 Walter Benjamin Lantz (April 27, 1899 - March 22, 1994) joined the staff of Hearst’s New York Sunday American as an office boy, sweeping floors, washing brushes and “rushing the beer cans” for the cartoonists. In 1917 he was taken under the wing of Gregory La Cava, director of Hearst’s animation studio, beginning at a $10 weekly salary. Animator Bert Green recalled the top salary at the time was $300 weekly).
International had been producing animated films since
1915 based on the best-selling comic strips from the Hearst papers. In Dec 1917
they announced the cartoons would be bigger and better, “as many pains will be
taken with them as a five-reel feature – Katzenjammer Kids Features Ready.” Gregory
La Cava (March 10, 1892 – March 1, 1952), who had previously worked with Raoul
Barré and John R. Bray, would direct the department under the supervision of
Edgar B. Hatrick.
Lantz recalled to British comic historian Denis
Gifford in 1972: “The characters moved very swiftly. We animated them like
human beings, from the joints. They had elbows and knees. Then Gregory La Cava
had an idea. He conceived what we came to call hose-pipe animation. He
eliminated elbows and knees. Arms and legs became rubber tubes, they were
flexible, they flowed. If Happy Hooligan wanted to reach across and pick up a
pie his body would stay put and his arm would stretch out like elastic!” –
‘Woody Woodpecker’s La-ha-ha-hah-antz,’ Denis Gifford, Arts Guardian,
July 4, 1972
Beginning in 1917, the International Syndicate released such cartoons in
series as Jerry on the Job, drawn by Walt Lantz; Katzenjammer Kids,
by John Foster; Tad’s Indoor Sports, drawn by Bill Nolan and released at
the end of the International Newsreel. Happy Hooligan, drawn by Jack
King; Bringing Up Father, by Bert Green; Krazy Kat, drawn also by
Bill Nolan and Leon Searle; and the best of the Internationals, Silk Hat
Harry, were the principal cartoons released at this time by that company.
This last named was drawn by Walter Lantz and La Cava and was first released in
1918.” – ‘The History of the Animated Cartoon,’ Earl Theisen, 1933
Tad Dorgan's Judge Rummy Joins the Stars of the Screen (with Silk Hat Harry,), Film Fun, January 1919. Art work probably by Walter Lantz.
“I started ‘Judge Rummy,’
‘Bunk,’ and the other dogs during the trial of Harry Thaw; they sort of
‘kidded’ the case and became popular. I have been drawing these characters ever
since. The 'Indoor Sports’ I thought of about seven years ago (1912), when I
was confined to my home with rheumatism. I thought what a lovely indoor sport
it was, this sitting around the house looking llke the wreck of the Hesperus.
Other Indoor sports suggested themselves and this series has been going on ever
since… I might add that It was Judge Rummy who first called the Ford car a
“flivver.” – TAD Dorgan, ‘Are Cartoonists Doleful?,’ The Sun, May 25,
1919
It
was reported in the Boston Sunday Post in 1929 that Dorgan’s “Indoor
Sports” was syndicated to 20,000,000 readers daily. His salary was well over
six figures yearly…
Tad Dorgan's Judge Rummy and Silk Hat Harry on the left of the page, FB Opper's Happy Hooligan on the right, Educational Films Corp., NY, Motion Picture News, August 9, 1919 (signed Walt Lantz)
On Feb 22, 1919, Educational Films Corporation
announced it would be distributing all Hearst cartoons world-wide. EFC had been
distributing Internationals animated cartoons before the outbreak of the
Spanish influenza but “when the situation reached a critical stage the
Educational ceased releasing these cartoons, and subsequently the International
Film Service Inc., stopped making them.” This was followed by an announcement
on October 21, 1919, that Bray Pictures Corporation had secured production of
all Hearst cartoons. The cartoons would be released through Goldwyn and
included Judge Rumhauser, Happy Hooligan, Krazy Kat, Jerry
on the Job, and the former Katzenjammer Kids renamed Shenanigan
Kids.
John R. Bray was the son of a Methodist minister. He
worked as a cartoonist on the Detroit News before moving to New York. He
was hoping for a job on Life or Judge but ended up in the art
department of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1911) where he worked alongside
Max Fleischer and Earl Hurd. He had one successful Sunday strip called the Teddy
Bears and a Little Nemo inspired comic, Mr. Scrapple of
Philadelphia, also know as Mr. Sleeper. His first animated cartoon, The
Artist’s Dream was announced June 12, 1913, followed by a widely popular
series beginning with Colonel Heeza Liar in Africa, in Dec 1913. In 1928
Bray released Dinky Doodle and his Wonderful Lamp, animated by Walter Lantz. It
was said to be the first of the “combination films,” where the actor (Walter
Lantz) appeared on film simultaneously with the animated character of Dinky
Doodle.
By the end of the teens Hearst’s International Film
Service was out of the animation business. Bray closed shop in 1929 leaving the
field to Walt Disney, Paul Terry, Max Fleischer, and Pat Sullivan. Sound and
color brought new vistas to the screen, and new techniques. Animation evolved
from crude “moving comic strips” to fully realized worlds of fluid motion
giving the illusion of life.