An exhibition at the Gràcia district headquarters and the inauguration of a space in the Creueta del Coll park named after her are the latest and belated recognitions for Pepita Pardell, a pioneer of animation cinema in Spain, who, however, suffered for decades from professional invisibility due to Francoist policies that reserved for women a role of submission in a patriarchal society. Pepita lived, until her death in 2019, at the age of 91, for animation cinema, participating in all the great projects and making history. One of her nieces, journalist Marta Pardell, fights to recover and maintain the legacy of what can be considered without any exaggeration the Walt Disney of Barcelona.
Still very young, Pepita stood out for the quality of her drawings. The artistic vocation was in her genes. Her grandfather was an artistic blacksmith who had worked for Antoni Gaudí on the Sagrada Família, and her parents also had talents for painting and singing. Therefore, they very soon detected their daughter's talent for drawing. Her first mentor was the painter and neighbor Antoni Comerma. She discovered the world of animation when she was taken to see Snow White, Walt Disney's historic animated film, which premiered in 1941 in Barcelona. She was 13 years old and her obsession from then on was to make her drawings move.
Her first professional steps occurred at just 16 years old, when her mother learned that a studio that had set up in their neighborhood, Coll-Vallcarca, was looking for illustrators to join the production team of what would be the first Spanish animated film, Garbancito de la Mancha, which, furthermore, was the first European production to use color through the acetate technique. 150 aspirants attended the test, including Pepita. It consisted of making a drawing on a cellophane sheet. She did not pass it as she was not familiar with the materials, but she managed to convince the studio managers to entrust her with tasks within her reach while she learned.
That's how she started by coloring backgrounds. The aforementioned acetate technique consisted of superimposing backlit transparent sheets. It was used in Balet y Blay studios before it was done in countries like France, the United Kingdom, and Italy, where it was not implemented until the 1950s.
In 1948, she also participated in the second production after Garbancito. It was Alegres vacaciones, and in 1952 she did so with the third, Sueños de Tay-Pi, which turned out to be a commercial failure and led to the closure of the studios and the beginning of the animation crisis in Spain. This situation forced Pepita Pardell to dedicate herself to comics, illustrating romantic stories for magazines aimed at a female audience, such as Azucena, Mis cuentos, Graciela and Güendolina, among others. She decided to sign them with the pseudonym Maite.
It wasn't until the 1960s that Pepita returned to animation. She did so at Buch-Sanjuán studios, specialized in advertising. The spots, made through animation, captivated the artist and she produced numerous ones, until the studios closed in 1964. Almost immediately she got a job at Publivisión, where she was named chief animator. But the studio employees did not take well to being bossed around by a woman. Talent was then socially reserved for men. A moment came when the situation became unbearable and Pepita decided to leave in 1972.
Again she was called upon, this time by the prestigious American animator and producer Robert Balser, who had settled in Spain and whose professional achievements included being animation director for the film Yellow Submarine in 1968, starring animated Beatles. With Balser, she worked mainly on international projects. In 1975, she made what can be considered the most important project of her career, the animated short film La doncella guerrera.
Years later, she worked for the cartoonist Jordi Amorós, with whom she returned, in the 80s, to advertising. Among others, she participated in the Si da, no da campaign, for AIDS prevention, and worked for the Televisión Española series Mofli el último koala. Finally, she participated in the production of Despertaferro, the first animated feature film in Catalan. She retired in 1993, coinciding with the incorporation of computers into animation.
The invisibility she was a victim of for being a woman in a man's world meant that recognition did not reach her until she was 87 years old. In 2016, she was awarded the Trajectòria prize at the Mostra de Cinema d'Animació de Catalunya. She was also recognized by the Acadèmia del Cinema Català, with an honorary Gaudí award. Pepita Pardell would have turned 100 in 2028. Since last Saturday, December 13, a square in the Creueta del Coll park bears her name and a mural remembers her. All too late, but more than deserved for the Catalan Walt Disney.