Two works by the first female American stop-motion animator - Helen Smith Dayton 'Gentleman with Straw Hat and Cane' and 'Flower Seller', cast in plaster and hand painted, each with Helen Smith Dayton impressed signature and 1915 copyright date, height 18.5cm each (Helena Smith Dayton 1879-1960 was an American film maker, painter and sculptor working on the East Coast who was an early pioneer of stop motion and clay animation techniques in the 1910's and 1920's, one of the first female animators to do so, her work contributed to the release of one of the first stop motion films in 1917, a 1916 dated edition of The Green Book Magazine features an illustrated article on these figures which Dayton referred to as 'Mud-Folk' figures).

Description

Two works by the first female American stop-motion animator - Helen Smith Dayton 'Gentleman with Straw Hat and Cane' and 'Flower Seller', cast in plaster and hand painted, each with Helen Smith Dayton impressed signature and 1915 copyright date, height 18.5cm each (Helena Smith Dayton 1879-1960 was an American film maker, painter and sculptor working on the East Coast who was an early pioneer of stop motion and clay animation techniques in the 1910's and 1920's, one of the first female animators to do so, her work contributed to the release of one of the first stop motion films in 1917, a 1916 dated edition of The Green Book Magazine features an illustrated article on these figures which Dayton referred to as 'Mud-Folk' figures).