Nat Falk
{{Short description|American illustrator and cartoonist}}
Nat Falk (June 28, 1898 – September 9, 1989) was an American illustrator and cartoonist. His 1941 book How to Make Animated Cartoons was one of the first instructional books on animation in the United States, covering the work of a wide variety of animation studios including Warner Bros. and Terrytoons.{{Cite web|date=16 January 2020|title=Animation: Nat Falk's How To Make Animated Cartoons Part One|url=https://animationresources.org/history-nat-falks-how-to-make-animated-cartoons-part-one/|access-date=1 September 2020|website=AnimationResources.org - Serving the Online Animation Community|language=en-US}}
Early life and education
Nathan Isaac Falk was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1898 to Lithuanian Jewish parents.{{Cite web|title=Nathan Isaac Falk|url=https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/nathan-isaac-falk-24-bpm7fl?geo_a=t&geo_s=uk&geo_t=us&geo_v=2.0.0&o_iid=62817&o_lid=62817&o_sch=Web+Property|access-date=1 September 2020|website=www.ancestry.com}}{{Cite news|date=1933|title=Children's Book Published by Former Baltimorean|work=The Jewish Times}} He began drawing at a young age, becoming the art editor of The Club, the magazine of the Alliance Athletic and Literary Club of the Jewish Educational Alliance in Baltimore, in 1917.{{Cite news|date=1917|title=Officers of A. and L. Club|volume=3|work=The American Jewish Chronicle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7UE6AQAAMAAJ&q=%22nat+falk%22+%22baltimore%22}} He studied art at the Maryland Institute,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UcA-AQAAMAAJ&q=%22Nathan+Isaac+Falk%22+%22Maryland+Institute%22|title=Circulars, Volume 37|publisher=Johns Hopkins University|year=1918}} and then at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.{{Cite web|title=Black and white photographic reproduction of class with Henry McCarter. · PAFA's Digital Archives|url=http://pafaarchives.org/item/26494|access-date=1 September 2020|website=pafaarchives.org|language=en-US}}
Career
In the 1920s Falk moved to New York, where he drew illustrations for various newspapers and magazines, on subjects ranging from health tips to anti-Nazi political satire.{{Cite news|last1=Brown|first1=Fisher|last2=Falk|first2=Nat|date=4 February 1938|title=What Do You Know About Health?|work=Andover News|url=https://www.andoverfreelibrary.org/archive/1930/1938/02_04_1938_07.pdf}}{{Cite web|title=CATALOG 114: Can You Translate The Unthinkable? A Catalog of Holocaust Imprints Issued in Three Parts: Part I|url=https://www.danwymanbooks.com/holo5part1.php|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190816231712/https://www.danwymanbooks.com/holo5part1.php|archive-date=2019-08-16|website=Dan Wyman Books}} He also illustrated book covers, including for the long-running Tom Swift{{Cite web|title="A very normal guy": An Interview with Robert Barnes on Marcel Duchamp and Étant Donnés|url=https://www.toutfait.com/a-very-normal-guy-an-interview-with-robert-barnes-on-marcel-duchamp-and-atant-donnas/|access-date=1 September 2020|website=Toutfait Marcel Duchamp Online journal|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|title=The Tom Swift Series by Victor Appleton|url=http://tomswift.net/ts1.htm|access-date=1 September 2020|website=tomswift.net}} and Don Sturdy{{Cite web|title=The Don Sturdy Series by Victor Appleton|url=http://seriesbooks.info/donsturdy.htm|access-date=1 September 2020|website=seriesbooks.info}} series.
In 1933 Falk published Magic Mother Goose, an illustrated collection of Mother Goose rhymes accompanied by a "magic glass" for viewing a hidden image in each picture.{{Cite book|last1=Falk|first1=Nat|title=Magic Mother Goose|last2=Vanguard Press|last3=H. Wolff Estate|date=1933|publisher=The Vanguard Press|location=New York|language=en|oclc=68439500}} The following year he released Russian Folk Tales, a collection of six Russian folk stories for children, with Yock Schwab.{{Cite book|last1=Schwab|first1=Yock|title=Russian folk tales|last2=Falk|first2=Nat|date=1934|publisher=Whitman Pub. Co.|location=Racine, Wis.|language=en|oclc=905256438}}
He published his best-known work, How to Make Animated Cartoons: The History and Technique, in 1941.{{Cite book|last=Falk|first=Nat|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wKlYGQAACAAJ|title=How to Make Animated Cartoons: The History and Technique|date=1941|publisher=Foundation books|language=en}} It covered virtually all U.S. animation studios in existence at the time{{Cite book|last=Klein, Norman M., 1945-|title=Seven minutes : the life and death of the American animated cartoon|date=1993|publisher=Verso|isbn=0-86091-396-1|location=London|oclc=28891649}} and included a foreword by Paul Terry, the founder of Terrytoons and creator of such characters as Mighty Mouse.{{Cite book|last=Michigan State University. Libraries. Special Collections Division.|title=The Comic Art Collection catalog : an author, artist, title, and subject catalog of the Comic Art Collection, Special Collections Division, Michigan State University Libraries|date=1993|publisher=Greenwood Press|others=Scott, Randall W. (Randall William), 1947-|isbn=0-313-28325-7|location=Westport, Conn.|oclc=27938147}} The book was one of the first of its kind available in the early golden age of American animation, and it influenced future animators including Richard Williams, who led the animation of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.{{Cite book|last=Williams, Richard, 1933-2019|title=The animator's survival kit|date=25 September 2012|isbn=978-0-86547-897-8|edition=First American expanded paperback|location=New York|oclc=794367471}}
Because recordings of many early animated cartoons have not survived, How to Make Animated Cartoons also serves as a useful record of the period in animation history.{{Cite book|last=Barrier, J. Michael.|title=Hollywood cartoons : American animation in its golden age|date=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-802079-0|location=New York|oclc=436041091}}
Personal life
In 1925, Falk married Katherine Sagal.{{Cite web|title=Nat Falk from Assembly District 2 Queens in 1940 Census District 41-199|url=http://www.archives.com/1940-census/nat-falk-ny-60124881|access-date=2020-09-01|website=www.archives.com}}{{Cite web|title=Katherine Falk|url=https://www.geni.com/people/Katherine-Falk/6000000005953722529|access-date=1 September 2020|website=geni_family_tree|date=21 August 1901 |language=en-US}} The couple had two sons, the military historian Stanley L. Falk and the physicist David S. Falk.{{Cite web|title=Stanley Falk|url=http://www.javadc.org/falks.htm|access-date=1 September 2020|website=www.javadc.org}}{{Cite web|last=Anne Suplee|title=David Falk, 1932-2020 - UMD Physics|url=https://umdphysics.umd.edu/about-us/news/department-news/1606-david-falk-1932-2020.html|access-date=1 September 2020|website=umdphysics.umd.edu|language=en-us}}
He died in New York in 1989, at age 91.{{Cite news|date=11 November 1989|title=FALK, Nat|work=The New York Times}}
Selected works
- Magic Mother Goose (1933)
- Russian Folk Tales (1934)
- How to Make Animated Cartoons (1941)
- It's Fun to Draw (contributed, 1944){{Cite book|last=Bogorad|first=Alan Dale|title=It's fun to draw|date=1944|publisher=Knickerbocker Pub. Co.|location=New York, N.Y.|language=en|oclc=2488321}}
External links
- [https://animationresources.org/history-nat-falks-how-to-make-animated-cartoons-part-one/ How to Make Animated Cartoons on Animation Resources]
References
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Category:20th-century American Jews
Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers
Category:American male non-fiction writers
Category:American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
Category:Jewish American animators
Category:Jewish American illustrators