Animated Life

A Mistaken Notion

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Artist Retta Davidson

Women artists could hold their own in animation's “boys’ club.”

A Woman's Touch in the Cartoon World

There's a mistaken notion that back in the 1950s, the Walt Disney Studios was strictly a man's world and that women were not even allowed in the Animation Building. It was believed that women employees were restricted to the “women's work” over in the Ink & Paint Department, where they dutifully traced the pencil drawings onto sheets of acetate or painted in the colors.

Such was not entirely true. Although male artists certainly outnumbered the women, it might surprise you to know that Disney had its fair share of talented female artists working away at the drawing tables on the Disney classic ...