A rather unique exhibit opened on June 6th at the Muskegon Museum of Art. Titled "HerStory of Animation", this exhibit covers the oft neglected history of women who work (or have worked) in the field of animation. Curated by filmmaker, author, and animation historian Mindy Johnson, the women on display ranged from animators (both independant and corporate), ink-and-paint girls, concept artists, inbetweeners, directors, and producers, among others.
The exhibit itself had a really nice flow to it as we were introduced to some of the earliest animation devices, like the mutoscope and the motion picture camera, which seguewayed into some of the earliest animators, like Helena Smith-Dayton, a woman who--as far as we know--is the first woman animator.
Being someone who collects her artwork, I loved seeing these surviving 'mud people' statues made by Helena early on in her career when she was using them as photo-illustrations for her stories that were pubsished in magazines like Puck.
Was fun to see this particular painting of Helena's from the Mindy Johnson collection. We had actually been bidding on this at the same time when it went to auction. Had I known at the time that she was the person I was going up against, I would've bowed out earlier and saved her a little money--professional courtesy and all that. After all, I do have a number of Helena's paintings in my personal collection already (though this one would've looked beautiful hanging on my wall).
One of the things that I really liked is how the exhibit mixed the current day with the historical. There was a really nice section covering Lotte Reiniger that had a basic model of a silhouette film set-up--which also displayed how her proto-multi-plane system worked.
But the exhibit also had this nice montage near the end showing current day animators and directors like Brenda Chapman, Lorna Cook, Vicky Jenson, Candy Kugel, Jennifer Lee, and more. It was a really nice look at the women of today and the work that they're producing.
But one of my favorite sections was the concept art section. Mary Blair's work was simply breathtaking--like this painting from her work on Alice in Wonderland.
Or this one from Sylvia Holland on Fantasia.
I really only have two quibbles about the exhibit, and they're really more theoretical than practical: first, I wish that Mindy Johnson's next book, "The Only Woman Animator" (which covers the works of Bessie Mae Kelly), had been available at the time. I've found Mindy's work to be very well researched and approachable. Would've liked to walk out of the Museum with a copy tucked under my arm, but excellence takes time and based on Mindy's prior work, I'm confident it will be well worth the wait.
The second is that I would really have liked to see some footnotes on the placards. There were a fair number of women whom I had either not heard of before or had only seen a little information on over the years--like fellow Michigander Faith Rookus.
I know that most museums don't do this, but I would love it if the placards had this QR code that could take a person to something like a bibliography webpage or a 'want to know more' webpage. Would be so awesome for people like me who saw the information in this exhibit as just the appetizer! Needless to say, I took lots of notes on the women in this exhibit for future research. Heh, augmented reality can't show up fast enough! Put on those AR glasses and take a stroll through the museum, learning more about the subjects only limited by the speed of your internet connection.
This is a rare exhibit that covers an understudied facet of the history of animation, and I really hope that a lot of people will take the time to see it before it leaves the museum. I personally made a 180 minute round trip drive to Muskegeon just to see this exhibit and it was well worth the time spent.
'HerStory of Animation' will be on display at the Muskegeon Museum of Art until September 27, 2026.
Thanks to Mindy Johnson and the Muskegeon Museum of Art for bringing this exhibit to Michigan.
* * *
