Alma Mary Duncan (October 2, 1917[1] – December 15, 2004[2]) was a Canadian painter, graphic artist, and filmmaker from Paris, Ontario.
[1] In 1951, Alma Duncan and her longtime partner, photographer Audrey McLaren, formed the film company Dunclaren Productions.
[14] They produced two other films, Hearts and Soles (1955), which used the same animation techniques as Kumak, and Friendly Interchange (1959), which was made with chalk drawings.
[1] Duncan retired from animated filmmaking in 1960 to allow herself to concentrate on her drawings and paintings,[12] which became increasingly abstract despite taking inspiration from her natural surroundings.
[16] Duncan's earlier painting Self-Portrait (1943) also embodies a feminist outlook, according to art historian Jaclyn Meloche, as her depiction of herself as a young and confident working artist defied prevailing gender norms.
[2] She and her partner, Audrey McLaren, regularly hosted social gatherings that brought together members of Ottawa's artistic community.
[18] Duncan maintained her interests in both industrial subjects (which began during her World War II project and resulted in a traveling retrospective of her industrial drawings in 1987, mounted by the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario) and the Canadian North (spending two months in 1975 on a sketching trip to Baffin and Ellesmere Islands).