James Robbins "Bob" Gardiner (March 19, 1951 – April 21, 2005) was an American artist, painter, cartoonist, animator, holographer, musician, storyteller, and comedy writer.

[1][2] He invented the stop-motion 3-D clay animation technique which his collaborator Will Vinton would later market as Claymation, although Bob preferred the term Sculptimation for his frame-by-frame method of sculpting plasticine clay characters and sets.

He and Vinton shared the 1974 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Closed Mondays.

[4] Gardiner committed suicide on April 21, 2005, while living at the Everhart Hotel in downtown Grass Valley.

[5] Gardiner and Vinton won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 1975[7] for Closed Mondays (1974).