Early Years
Vladimir Peter Tytla was born on October 25, 1904 in Yonkers, New York. His Ukrainian immigrant parents reportedly recognized talent in their son and encouraged it. In 1914, when Tytla was 9, he visited Manhattan to attend Gertie the Dinosaur, an animated vaudeville act by Winsor McCay. He never forgot it, and some say it changed his life forever.
Tytla attended the New York Evening School of Industrial Design while still in high school. But eventually high school lost out to his interest in art and he quit. In 1920, at age 16, Tytla was working for the Paramount animation studio in New York. His assignment was providing lettering for title cards. He was nicknamed "Tytla the Titler."
His first animation experiences were on Mutt and Jeff short films at the Bronx studio of Raoul Barré and the Joy and Bloom Phable at the Greenwich Village studio of John Terry, later creator of the aviation comic strip Scorchy Smith. His brother Paul Terry, founder of Terrytoons, soon hired Tytla to work on his Aesop's Fables.
Within three years he was earning a very good salary as an animator and supporting his family. The simplistic nature of cartoons at the time did not challenge Tytla who dreamed of becoming a fine artist. He took up his studies again at the Art Students League of New York and studied under Boardman Robinson.
In 1929 he sailed for Europe with some of his school friends to study painting in Paris. There he not only studied painting, but sculpture with Charles Despiau. To this has been attributed the weight and three-dimensionality of his work. In Europe he was able to see first hand the masterpieces he had only read about. True to his nature of never wanting to be second best, Tytla came to the conclusion that he could never top these masters and destroyed most of his work.
Read more about this topic: Bill Tytla
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