Alison de Vere

Alison de Vere (16 September 1927 – 2 January 2001), while married also known as Alison Weschke, was a British animator, known for her animated short films The Black Dog and Psyche and Eros.

Career Born in Peshawar into a British military family, de Vere studied art in Brighton and at the Royal Academy.

She worked as a background designer at Halas and Batchelor studio beginning in 1951, at a time when women were unheard of in creative leadership roles in British animation. Nonetheless, she took the leadership of the animation unit of Guild Television Services in 1957. During the 1960s, she worked as a freelancer, but joined TVC in 1967 to work as design director on the Beatles film Yellow Submarine, in which she had a cameo.

Acclaim The Guardian characterised de Vere as "not only the first woman auteur cartoon film-maker in Britain but also the best", thanks to her proficiency in animation technique and her design sense; and her film The Black Dog as representing "the same sort of advance in animation that The Marriage of Figaro was in opera".

Works In addition to her previously mentioned works, de Vere worked as an animator for the TV series The Animals of Farthing Wood, East of the Moon and The Beatles, among others.

Personal life In 1948 de Vere married the painter Karl Weschke (1925–2005), whom she later divorced. The couple had a son, Ben de Vere Weschke.