Alma Duncan

Alma Mary Duncan (October 1917 – December 15, 2004) was a Canadian painter, graphic artist, and filmmaker.

Early life

Alma Duncan was born in the southwestern Ontario town of Paris, but attended high school in Hamilton, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec. Though largely self-taught as an artist, she studied with Canadian painter Adam Sheriff Scott as a teenager and later took studio drawing courses at the Roberts-Neumann School of Art.

War Work

In 1943, Duncan obtained permission to document the lives of war workers and the members of the Canadian Women's Army Corps with her sketches. Several of these pieces are now held by the Canadian War Museum in its Beaverbrook Collection of War Art.

National Film Board

In 1943, the National Film Board of Canada invited Duncan to join its Graphics Division. She worked first with the Information Display department, designing posters, publications, and travelling displays for National Film Board projects. She moved to the NFB's Animation Department when the Graphics Division was disbanded and produced her first film, Folksong Fantasy (shown at the 1951 Edinburgh International Film Festival) while under contract with the NFB as an independent producer.