Animation filmmaker Gerald Potterton died on the evening of Tuesday August 23 at the age of 91. His works produced in a pivotal period of Canadian cinema will earn him many tributes.
Between England and Canada, Gerald Potterton put his time in pictures. For decades, he handled the absurd and humor to illustrate the frenetic modernity that engulfed the second half of the 20th century. He belongs to this “new wave of irreverent and innovative storytellers”, commented Claude Joli-Coeur, government film commissioner and president of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), when confirming the news of his death.
Originally from London, Potterton made his first serious sketches at the Hammersmith Art School. Impressed by the modernity of NFB drawings at the time, he fell in love with the work of local filmmakers. Shortly after graduating in 1954, he immigrated to Canada to work alongside the pioneers of animation at the NFB, his “gods,” as he recently called it in an interview.
In a few years, he made his own short films which ensured his notoriety. Movies My financial career (1962) and whim of christmas (1963) will both get Oscar nominations.
Gerald Potterton is also making a name for himself in live-action comedy with the race (1963) and the award-winning wordless film The Railrodder (1965).
Gerald Potterton then leaves for England. He notably collaborated on the animated feature film on the Beatles Yellow Submarine (1968).
Returning to Canada a few years later, he founded Potterton Productions. Among the works of this independent company is an animated short adapted from the tale by Oscar Wilde The Selfish Giant (1972) which earned him a third Oscar nomination.
He then went on to animated films, and supervised a large number of them.
He also dabbles in painting. His realistic-style canvases revolve around themes of aviation and the sky, perhaps echoing his early years of service in the Royal Air Force.
Artist until his last breath, he wrote in 2020 a story for children on Joseph-Armand Bombardier, The Snowman.
A member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, he was chosen in 1998 by the World Animation Celebration as one of the “ten men who shook the world of animation”.