Ottawa Art Gallery’s Frame by Frame traces 80 years of animation
Ottawa Art Gallery and neighbouring Le Germain Hotel in a 2019 exterior photograph. The gallery is hosting Frame by Frame: Animation in Ottawa through March 14, 2027.
Photo credit: Jeangagnon / Wikimedia Commons
An owl puppet made for Alma Duncan’s Folksong Fantasy is one of the objects identified in Ottawa Art Gallery’s published materials for Frame by Frame: Animation in Ottawa. The exhibition traces more than 80 years of animation in the city and surrounding region, covering the National Film Board’s early work in Ottawa as well as later independent artists and studios. It opened September 19 and continues until March 14, 2027.
Ottawa Art Gallery developed Frame by Frame with the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) for the festival’s 50th anniversary. The exhibition is curated by Meghan Ho, Kelly Neall and Chris Robinson, while the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) contributed artwork, photographs, films and archival excerpts. OIAF’s anniversary festival ran September 23–27; the gallery exhibition remains open into 2027.
The NFB established its animation department in Ottawa during the 1940s, and Norman McLaren joined the organization in 1941. The gallery’s exhibition images include a still from his 1952 film Neighbours, in which two neighbours quarrel over a flower and their dispute turns violent. McLaren used pixillation, a stop-motion technique involving live performers photographed frame by frame, to create the film’s distinctive movement.
The gallery’s published images identify Duncan’s owl puppet as a work made around 1950–51 from wood, metal, plastic and paint. They also include an archival photograph of Duncan working with puppets, while OAG’s shop describes the owl artwork as featured in the exhibition. Duncan directed and animated Folksong Fantasy for the NFB, using puppets to illustrate three traditional songs, including “Who Killed Cock Robin?”
OAG’s published exhibition images also identify a hand-painted animation cel from The Raccoons on Ice (1981). The gallery credits the cel courtesy of Kevin Gillis and lists Evergreen Raccoons Marketing Inc. as the copyright holder.
Chris Dainty’s Shannon Amen (2019) is represented in the gallery’s published material by a film still. The NFB short uses writings, artwork and music by Dainty’s friend Shannon Jamieson, who died by suicide. It explores her experiences with sexuality and religious faith, with animation that includes drawings and stop-motion work involving carved ice. Other artists named in the gallery’s images include Sharon Katz, Cooper the Film Scientist and Brennan Bova, whose Join dates to 2025.
OIAF was founded by the Canadian Film Institute in 1975 and held its first festival in Ottawa in 1976, decades after the NFB began its animation work in the capital. The exhibition marks that anniversary while following the work of independent filmmakers and studios in the region.
Frame by Frame: Animation in Ottawa is at Ottawa Art Gallery’s Spencerville Gallery on Level 3 until March 14, 2027. Admission is free, with entrances at 10 Daly Avenue and 50 Mackenzie King Bridge. The gallery is generally closed Mondays and advises visitors to check its schedule for holiday closures.
