Art Clokey
Arthur "Art " Clokey ( born October 12, 1921 in Detroit, Michigan, United States; † January 8, 2010 in Los Osos, California ) was an American film director and cartoon animator. Clokey is a pioneer of Knetanimations technique. He is the inventor of children's programs Gumby and Davey and Goliath.
Life
He was born in 1921 as Charles Arthur Farrington in Detroit. After the divorce of his parents in 1929 he lived with his father, who died a year later in a car accident. His mother and her new husband sent him to an orphanage. At the age of 11 he was adopted by the composer Joseph W. Clokey, who brought him closer to the art by teaching him drawing.
Clokey studied at Miami University in Ohio, and then attended the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. Later, he began studying at the University of Southern California, where he met the Serb- American filmmaker Slavko Vorkapić, who influenced his later work greatly.
In 1953 his first film Gumbasia, dancing in the figures from plasticine to jazz music. Shortly thereafter, he created the character Gumby. The figure obtained in 1957 a separate series, the 1962 and 1966/67, supplemented by additional consequences. Another Gumby series was born in 1988, where in addition to newly produced films, old material was reused.
In 1995, the feature film Gumby and his friends came.
Clokey was married twice. His first wife Ruth Clokey assisted him in the production of his clay animation. The 1948 contracted marriage, from which sprang a son and a daughter ( 1955-1974 ), was divorced in 1966. In 1976 Clokey married again; his second wife Gloria died in 1998.