The Animation Educators’ Forum (AEF), a nonprofit association of teachers and scholars whose focus is the art of animated film, announce the selection of its 2025 Hall of Fame recipients. The AEF selects a new group of recipients each January. This virtual hall is dedicated to the artists and scholars whose teaching influenced the history of animation.
AEF is one of the initiatives of ASIFA-Hollywood, the largest chapter of the international organization ASIFA (Association Internationale du Film d’Animation). ASIFA-Hollywood supports a wide range of animation activities and preservation efforts through its membership. Current initiatives also include the Animation Archive, Animation Aid Foundation, film preservation, open source support, special events, screenings and the annual Annie Awards™.
The Animation Educators’ Hall of Fame, Class of 2025:
Howard Beckerman (1930-2024)- Animator, director, teacher. Beckerman was hired straight out of Brooklyn to work at Terrytoons. He soon added UPA and Paramount to his resume. He and his wife Iris found Howard Beckerman Films where he created many fun commercials and educational shorts. In the early 1970s he began teaching animation (as a favor, he said) at Parson’s School and later The School of Visual Arts. There he remained for over 47 years and was a beloved fixture at that school. There he influenced generations of animators.
John Canemaker (born 1943) Animator, Animation historian and independent filmmaker. Canemaker has worked in NY animation since the 1970s. His 2005 film The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation won an Academy Award. He has lectured on animation around the world. In 1980, he began teaching and developing the animation program at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts’, Kanbar Institute of Film and Television Department. He is the author of several important books on famous animators like Winsor McCay, Otto Mesmer, and Mary Blair.
Nelbertina “Nellie” Chouinard (1879-1969)–a pioneering educator within the arts, Nellie began Chouinard Art Institute in 1921 and it became one of the leading art schools in the world. From the 1930s, Chouinard Art Institute became Walt Disney’s key resource for artists hired at Disney Studios as well as providing training as the origins of the Disney training school. The tradition continues today with Cal Arts continued standing as the premiere school for animation.
Thornton “T” Hee (1911-1988) – T Hee was an animator, designer and caricaturist who was best known for his time at Walt Disney, where he directed the Dance of the Hours sequence in Fantasia. He helped started the Character Animation program at Cal Arts and was later chair of the Film Arts Dept. His instruction inspired many important figures of the Nineties Renaissance like Joe Ranft, John Lasseter, and Tim Burton.
Edwin G. Lutz (1868 -1951) Lutz’s books changed an industry and influenced many aspiring artists. In 1920, Charles Scribner’s Sons published Animated Cartoons – How They Are Made Their Origin and Development by artist/illustrator E.G. Lutz. This was the first book dedicated exclusively to the craft of film animation. Both the craft and the burgeoning industry of animation would never be the same. Walt Disney checked Lutz’s book out of the Kansas City, Missouri library to use as a manual for his Laugh-O-Gram Studio. The book was soon published in England and Germany. Lutz was also an animation filmmaker, having produced The Story of Old Glory in 1918.
Leonard Maltin (born 1950). Maltin was one of the first critics and film historians to take animation study seriously. His books in the ‘70s, Of Mice and Magic and The Disney Films are considered seminal works. His scholarship extended to live action cinema as well and for 30 years he was a TV personality on ABC’s Entertainment Tonight. He was also president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assoc. He has lectured and taught around the world, but is best known for his classes at the New School of Social Research in New York, and the University of Southern California.
Don Perro (1960-2024). Canadian Perro worked as an animator, story artist in Germany and Ottawa. He started the 2D animation program at Algonquin College in 1990 then moved to Vancouver where he created the animation program of Capilano College. He also helped develop an animation program in Jamaica.
Ivan Sutherland (born 1938) Nebraskan Sutherland was one of the most important figures in the development our modern digital media. In 1962 while a grad student at MIT he wrote Sketchpad, one of the earliest CG drawing and animation software programs. Teaching at Harvard in 1968 he developed an early VR system. Teaming with Prof Dave Evans they built the computer graphics program at the University of Utah. Their students read like a who’s-who of modern computer graphics. Sutherland was a fellow and VP of Sun Microsystems and a visiting scholar in the computer science division at University of California, Berkeley. Since 2009 he has led the research in Asynchronous Systems at Portland State University.
Frank Terry (1939-2014) Terry was an animator director in Los Angeles commercials who directed the Cal Arts character animation program, from 1996-2007 “Frank brought a new level of ideas to the program—from curriculum to the jurying process for the annual producers’ showcase, to his encouragement for student participation in film festivals,” said assistant dean Leo Hobaica, Jr. “He elevated the discourse in the classroom, always striking a balance between industry requests and art for art’s sake. The films became technically better and more interesting than they’d been before, and suddenly there were kids who believed that they could become auteurs.”
Glenn Vilpu (born 1936) Undoubtedly the most influential drawing teacher today in classical animation. A graduate of Art Center in Pasadena, Vilpu worked as a layout artist on animation projects at Walt Disney, Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. But he saw a need to provide practical drawing instruction to the professional animation community. He taught drawing workshops around the studios and eventually around the world. He founded the Vilpu Online Academy and after 50 years of classes shows no sign of slowing down. Vilpu’s motto is “There are no rules, just tools.”
