Fine Feathers

Evelyn Lambart, the first woman animator at the National Film Board, was a frequent collaborator with the legendary Norman McLaren – a lengthy and productive partnership that resulted in eight significant short films, including Begone Dull Care (1949), Around Is Around (1951) and Now Is the Time (1951).

Initially hired as a letterer when she joined the NFB in 1942, following commercial art studies at the Ontario College of Art, Lambart specialized in graphics and maps (which she used extensively in The World in Action series), as well as educational films. Her Family Tree (1950), about the settlement of Canada, and The Impossible Map (1947), which explains how flat maps can be created from a round globe, are classics of their kind. Her animation work on A Chairy Tale (1957), where she made a chair come to life to the comic frustration of Claude Jutra, earned her an Academy Award® nomination.

Beginning in the mid-sixties, Lambart developed her own style using paper cut-outs transferred to lithograph plates, which she would then paint and animate. She used this technique to create the memorable animal characters in a finely-crafted series of seven morality tales for children, which included Mr. Frog Went A-Courting (1974) and The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse (1980). A film on her life in semi-retirement, Eve Lambart, was made in 1978 by Margaret Wescott.

Lambart’s many international awards include a Special Award (Family Tree) at the 1951 Canadian Film Awards, and the Silver Plaque for Best Documentary/Cultural Film (Begone Dull Care) at the 1951 Berlin International Film Festival. —Canadian Film Encyclopedia