Joseph Clarence Grant (May 15, 1908 – May 6, 2005) was an American conceptual artist, storyboard artist, and screenwriter.

Grant was born on May 15, 1908 in New York City on the Lower East Side. He was the son of George Albert Grant and Eva Green. He had a younger sister, Geraldine. Grant was a second-generation descendant of Polish and Russian Jews. His father George (1885–1938) emigrated from Poland at age 5, with his parents Nathan Gumolinsky and Fannie (née Freund). Nathan adopted "Grant" as his surname after emigrating into the United States, supposedly because he had admired U. S. President Ulysses S. Grant.

Joe Grant moved to Los Angeles with his family when he was two years old, after his father was hired as an art director for William Randolph Hearst's Los Angeles Examiner newspaper. At a young age, Grant was exposed to his father's extensive collection of European art books, which included Honoré Daumier, Gustave Doré, and Ludwig Richter. He also accompanied his father to his workplace, where he reflected years later, he learned his artistic techniques by looking "over my father's shoulder."

By 1912, Grant's parents had separated, and along with his sister, he regularly relocated from New York and Los Angeles. At nine years old, Grant was hired as a contract player for Fox Film, appearing in uncredited roles for Jack and the Beanstalk (1917), Treasure Island (1918), and Fan Fan (1918). Grant attended Venice High School and later Chouinard Art Institute. In 1928, through his father's help, Grant was hired as an assistant cartoonist for the Los Angeles Record newspaper for ten dollars a week. There, he drew caricatures of famous personalities, including Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Helen Hayes, and Joan Crawford.

Grant's caricatures caught Walt Disney's attention that he phoned him at his office, and hired him to design caricatures of Hollywood celebrities for the Mickey Mouse short, Mickey's Gala Premier (1933). His caricatures had been previously referenced—without credit—in the 1932 Mickey Mouse short, Parade of the Award Nominees, a cartoon produced for the 1932 Academy Awards. On September 9, 1933, Grant signed with Walt Disney Productions. By 1934, Grant had joined the story department, in which he shared an office with Albert Hurter and Bob Kuwahara. He contributed story sketches on several Silly Symphonies shorts, including The Grasshopper and the Ants (1934), The Tortoise and the Hare (1935), Water Babies (1935), and Alpine Climbers (1936). At home, he began coloring his pastel sketches to demonstrate his ideas and capture Disney's attention, and his approach was adopted by other story artists. Soon after, he began collaborating with Bill Cottrell on the Silly Symphonies. Contrell wrote the story outlines while Grant provided the story sketches. They worked on Who Killed Cock Robin? (1935), which featured a cast of animated birds; the character Jenny Wren was caricatured after Mae West and drawn by Grant.

In 1934, Grant, along with the animation staff, were first notified of Disney's plans for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) when Disney acted out the entire story to his animation staff on a soundstage. Grant and Contrell were assigned to storyboard the scenes featuring the Evil Queen. Furthermore, Grant drew conceptual sketches for the Evil Queen in her regular appearance and her Witch form. According to John Canemaker, the Evil Queen was modeled after Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, and Helen Gahagan's Queen in the 1935 film She. In 1999, Grant stated his inspiration for her Witch appearance was a female neighbor who "had a basket and used to pick persimmons." Grant and Albert Hurter received screen credit as the film's character designers.

During the fall of 1937, Disney was in active development on Pinocchio (1940), in which he pushed his staff to create a more realized film than Snow White. To strengthen the animators' drawings for the title character, Disney asked Grant how could they improve their technique. Grant suggested creating three-dimensional scale models known as maquettes so animators could draw the characters from different angles; Grant had earlier crafted a maquette for the Witch. Disney agreed and reassigned Grant to supervise the Character Model Department, which began on October 11, 1937. As production continued, Grant's department helped to finalize the character designs, with ideas regarding costumes, props and settings to guide the animators, story artists, and layout artists. In their 1981 joint book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston stated no model sheet was finalized unless it bore the seal of approval: "O.K., J.G."

As Pinocchio continued in development, Disney assigned Grant to work on Fantasia (1940) as the "story director", in addition to supervising the Character Model Department. For the first time, Grant was partnered with Dick Huemer, which became as creative as his earlier partnership with Contrell. In September 1938, Disney, Grant, Huemer, Deems Taylor, Leopold Stokowski, and various department heads held a three-week story conference listening to multiple classical music recordings. During development for The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Grant drew pastel sketches for the old wizard. Martin Provensen, another character designer, also drew inspirational sketches; both men's artwork influenced the hiring of English silent film actor Nigel De Brulier to be photographed as live-action reference.