Faith Hubley (1924–2001)

Faith Hubley, née Chestman, was born to a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants in New York City. She dropped out of high school and left home to move to Hollywood to pursue a career in the movies. She started working as a messenger at Columbia Pictures, and subsequently became a sound-effects and music editor. She also worked as a script clerk for Republic Pictures. She was a script supervisor on Twelve Angry Men (1957) and the editor of Go, Man, Go (1954). In 1955, she married John Hubley, with whom she had four children. Her husband was a pro-union political activist who was blacklisted from Disney. So together they founded the experimental Storyboard Studios as an independent animation studio. They collaborated on more than 20 short films, and contributed many animated segments to Sesame Street and The Electric Company, before John's death in 1977. Throughout their careers, they were influenced by jazz and abstract expressionism. They won Academy Awards for their short animated films Moonbird (1959), The Hole (1962), and A Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature (1966). They also received Oscar nominations for Windy Day, Of Men and Demons, Voyage to Next, and A Doonesbury Special. Faith's many solo projects established her as a significant film creator in her own right. She began the first one, W.O.W. (Women of the World), after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1975.

Between 1976 and 2001, she completed 24 further solo animated films. She used an unconventional technique in which hand-painted works on paper were illuminated from below, giving the animation a special look. She was also a painter whose works were exhibited in galleries in Europe and the USA.

In addition, she taught at the Yale School of Art in the 1990s. Among her honors were 14 CINE Golden Eagle awards.