Essay by John CanEmakErExHIBITIOn CuRATOR

MARCH 13 –sEpTEMBER 7, 2014

THE WALT DIsnEY FAMILY MusEuM

sAn FRAnCIsCO, CALIFORnIA

MARY BLAIRTHE WORLD OF

Magic

FlairColor

In memory of Diane Disney Miller

Mary Blair, circa 1941

kirsten komoroske

Executive Director

The Walt Disney Family museum

IT BRIngs ME gREAT pLEAsuRE to share with you Magic Color Flair: The World of

Mary Blair, the catalog for the retrospective exhibition at The Walt Disney Family

Museum. The exhibition explores the career of one of Walt’s most beloved

designers and art directors, and one of the most influential women in animation:

Mary Blair. The exhibition opens in March—Women’s History Month—to honor

Blair as one of the immensely talented female artists who, in the early days of

animation at the Walt Disney Studios, helped crack the celluloid ceiling and pave

the way for today’s women animators, story artists, writers, and directors.

“If a woman can do the work as well, she is worth as much as a man,” Walt

Disney famously declared in a speech to his employees in February 1941. “The

girl artists have the right to expect the same chances for advancement as men,

and I honestly believe they may eventually contribute something to this business

that men never would or could.” Less than a year later, Walt’s premonition about

the incredible possibilities for women at Disney was realized in Mary Blair.

On the Good Neighbor policy tour with a group of artists traveling through

South America to illustrate its people and ways of life, Blair developed the unique

and incredibly arresting, captivatingly colorful style for which she’s known today.

Once back stateside, her new aesthetic found expression in the animation depart-

ment at the Studios, where her lush color choices and charming, fresh art direc-

tion heavily influenced the look and feel of Disney films for almost thirty years.

And later in her life, after a robust career as a freelance illustrator, Blair rejoined

forces with Walt to create dazzling murals and interactive displays, demonstrat-

ing that women could not only do the work and do it well, but that they also could

chart new and imaginative territories in the world of art and design.

The Walt Disney Family Museum is fortunate to have many exceptional pieces

of Blair’s artwork and personal artifacts due to the commitment of Diane Disney

Miller, Walt’s daughter and The Walt Disney Family Museum’s co-founder, to

acquire these pieces for our permanent collection, and also due to the generosity of

our dear friends and Blair’s nieces, Maggie Richardson and Jeanne Chamberlain,

who have loaned even more beautiful works for this exhibition. In addition to

sketchbooks kept during her South America trip and stunning concept art for

Disney films such as Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and Peter Pan, the museum

is also happy to permanently host Blair’s paint stand—complete with her trusty

brushes, favorite paints, and stylish eyeglasses—as a shrine to “our lady of flair.”

But beyond Blair’s immeasurable gifts to the animation world and her status

as one of the industry’s first female icons, she herself was a treasure to Walt and

his family. John Canemaker, exhibition curator, noted expert on Blair’s lifework,

and friend to the museum, has concluded that, “Of all his artists, this female

artist was Walt’s favorite.” Her work even hung in the Disney family home in Los

Angeles where Diane Disney Miller grew up. Sadly, Diane passed away before the

opening of this exhibition, but we know that she would have been delighted to

see the brilliant hues and sparkling inventiveness of Blair’s work on the museum

walls, as well as the joy experienced by our guests.

It was Diane’s vision to honor her father’s favorite artists—to preserve their

work and share their talents with the public. With this exhibition and those to

come, we loyally keep her legacy alive. This catalog is dedicated to her memory.

FORE WORD

7

CRE ATIng nEW WORLDs

“This is the most interesting job I’ve ever had. [The] results are more

delightful than anything I’ve tried before.” 1

—mary bLair regarding it’s a small world, 1964

WHEn MARY BLAIR LEFT the Disney Studio, “the printing press supplanted the

cinema as the medium for the reproduction of her colorful art,” American Artist

magazine reported. 2 Actually, the print medium was but one of a variety of out-

lets for her adaptable talents from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s.

For example, she created more than twenty semiabstract designs for hand-

kerchiefs and scarfs manufactured by Carol Stanley Studios, New York, which

sold in Lord & Taylor and other specialty-retail upscale department stores. Also

for Lord & Taylor and branches in 1964, she designed women’s suits and dresses

for the store’s Beverly Paige label. She designed sets for lavish Christmas and

Easter pageants produced by Leon Leonidoff at Radio City Music Hall, and for

an unproduced Broadway musical with a Duke Ellington score titled Cole Black

and the Seven Dwarfs. In June 1962, she constructed paper sculptures for Bonwit

Teller’s chic store windows on Fifth Avenue. She also designed TV commercials

for Pepsodent toothpaste, Meadow Gold Ice Cream, and other products through

her husband’s film production company. David Swift, a former Disney animator

and later the director of Disney live-action films, such as Polyanna (1960) and

The Parent Trap (1961), hired Mary Blair as “Color Designer” for the live-action

film adaptation of the Broadway hit musical How to Succeed in Business Without

Really Trying (1967).

In the print medium, in addition to greeting cards and magazines, Mary

Blair’s most widely seen illustrations were advertisements for national brands,

including Nabisco, Johnson & Johnson, Beatrice Foods, Maxwell House coffee

(utilizing twenty-four-sheet billboard posters), Meadow Gold Ice Cream, Blue

Bell children’s clothes, and Baker’s Instant Cocoa, among other products.

A dozen Pall Mall cigarette ads, in a striking poster-like design, ran in two

national campaigns. Each ad features the familiar red cigarette pack surrounded

by food—grapes, grapefruit, apples, pears, a shrimp cocktail, even a lobster

(because Pall Mall is “So friendly to your taste!”). In a rare, if oblique, statement

Mary Blair stands before her tomorrowland mural designDisneyland, circa 1967

30

regarding a modern art influence on her work, Blair noted in a letter to Ross Care

that the thick black line she painted around the cigarette pack “incidentally came

from inspiration that the SSC&B [ad agency] art director, Joe Franchina, received

upon seeing the Picasso exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.” In the same

letter is a second Picasso reference: “The question as to the changing design

trend at the time I went to work at Disney might be compared to the work of an

individual artist. They all evolve and change styles as time passes. Take Picasso

as an example.” 3

Among her most long-lasting and beloved print ventures are the whimsical

illustrations she created for the children’s book genre, namely Golden Books. For

more than fifty years her illustrated books have enchanted young readers, who

pass them on (originals and reprints) to subsequent generations.

Mary Blair had already illustrated two of her five Golden Books before she left

the Disney Studio, another indication (along with being allowed to work from

home) of how privileged and special she was in Walt’s eyes. She freelanced for

Golden Books, along with a group of other former animation associates (mostly

from Disney) who had moved to the East Coast, including John Parr Miller,

Martin and Alice Provensen, Aurelius Battaglia, and Gustaf Tenggren. For them,

Golden Books was not only a source of income but a vehicle for artistic expres-

sion. 4 “[Blair’s] colleagues all painted and drew in highly individualistic styles

that nonetheless reflected some of the major tendencies in postwar graphic art

and design,” writes historian Leonard S. Marcus in Golden Legacy.

Deftly straddling the line between traditional representation and

modernist abstraction, each of these inventive artists strove for an

airy lightness and brightness of being-on-the-page that belonged to

the new streamlined age of glass-box skyscrapers, ribbon highways,

and casual middle-class suburban living. Festive colors applied in

bold, surprising combinations made simply opening one of their

books a challenging as well as playful adventure. 5

Selected original illustrations in this exhibition include Mary Blair’s Baby’s

House (1950), I Can Fly (1950), The Golden Book of Little Verses (1953), The

New Golden Song Book (1955), and The Up and Down Book (1964). In each, her

rapidly, almost feverishly, turned out due to tight production exigencies or the

need to get story and color dreams out of her head and onto paper.

Absent, too, in the Golden Books were pressures to visualize narratives con-

taining high drama, low comedy, and a variety of emotions. Instead, her brief for

the kids’ books was to gently evoke a child’s wonder, sense of fun, and curiosity

about the world. Blair invests her books with subtle messages touting cooper-

ation and inventiveness; using your imagination; and being kind and gentle to

playmates both human and animal. Her images glow with optimism, warmth,

and playfulness. It is an insular world, in which sadness and anger are emotional

notes not played, except inadvertently. In Little Verses, for example, a lost doll

resembling a broken Tim Burton puppet lies in a cold field among black beetles,

observed by a spooky white rabbit. More often, a dark background is inevitably set

off by joyful activity in the foreground; as in a two-page spread of kids blowing

pastel-hued bubbles alongside playful kittens and a flock of small colorful birds

(see page 141). After seeing Mary Blair’s colors and her mesmerizing Golden Book

pictures, many a child became interested in art; indeed, because of this early

exposure, numerous children were inspired to pursue a career in art.

The preliminary and final illustrations in this exhibition for The Up and

Down Book, Blair’s last Golden Book, allow another glimpse into her creative

process (shown here and on pages 142–147). Spidery, tentative pencil lines form

the initial idea sketches, cautious as all inspirational sketches are when the light-

bulb in the artist’s mind begins to glow. In the finished paintings, however, all

signs of hesitancy have fled. Now, strong thick lines surround the child charac-

ters made from simple geometric shapes and bold straight-from-the-tube colors.

There is an in-your-face feeling of children (and the artist) letting go, playing,

illustrationThe Up and Down Book (Golden Book), 1964opaque watercolor on illustration board | 121⁄3 x 13 1⁄4 inches

bountiful imagination and magical imagery are showcased in paintings that are

inventive in layout, color, and superb technical craftsmanship.

Her first book, Baby’s House (written by Gelolo McHugh) is suffused with a

fascination with children and the joys of parenthood. (The Blairs’ second child

was born the year of the book’s publication, which may have something to do

with the exuberance of her illustrations, visible on pages 136 –137.) The New York

Times lauded Baby’s House for portraying “the young child’s satisfaction in every-

day objects as Baby marches through his house, making a joyful inventory of

those things that are important in the first years of life.” 6

The illustrations for I Can Fly (which was written by Ruth Krauss and also

published in 1950) reflect Blair’s animation experience: The little girl mim-

ics the action and poses of animals she encounters, as the images on pages

132–135 show. The book was an even bigger success: The New York Herald

Tribune awarded it a Picture Book Honor at the 1951 Children’s Spring Book

Festival and it has remained in print for more than sixty years. Readers of all

ages were (and continue to be) delighted by the inquisitive little girl in the

story. In 1960, Jacqueline Kennedy wrote Blair a personal note from the White

House to say that I Can Fly is one of her three-year-old daughter Caroline’s

“favorite books.” 7

Blair’s delicate whimsy and inventiveness found an expansive outlet in

Golden Books. In The Golden Book of Little Verses, for example, bees are busy and

sleepy, and worm/centipede cousins enjoy high tea underneath a flower garden.

The costumed insects are individuated with charming anthropomorphism and

more than a dollop of humor (see page 140). Interesting, too, is the dry brush

painting technique Blair uses to add texture to the ground and flower petals and,

of course, her balancing of intense and neutral colors. Art director Fred Cline,

who knew Lee and Mary Blair in their later years, notes that her “color juxtapo-

sition is very pleasing, but very unusual. The work has a graphic sense, but not a

hard feeling. The shapes are organic and she rubs tones to give some dimension.

But she doesn’t explain dimension in a logical way.” 8

Her book deadlines were less intense than those of animated feature film

productions. For films, she painted (in an animator’s frame of mind) many, many

variations to suggest ideas for staging, character poses, camera angles, and set-

tings. Some of her small paintings for Alice in Wonderland appear to have been

thumbnail sketchThe Up and Down Book (Golden Book), 1964 graphite and ink on onionskin paper | 11 x 14 inches

32 33

having fun, making lots of noise! The loud, posteresque look is reminiscent of

certain Blair advertising assignments and especially the collages she made for it’s

a small world, which was completed the same year (1964) that The Up and Down

Book was published.

In 1963, Walt Disney came back into Blair’s life like a benevolent uncle laden

with exciting gifts for a favorite but neglected niece. What Walt offered Mary for

the next three years was a series of creative challenges that would bring her art

to a new and literally large level.

Her first assignment was a project for the 1964 New York World’s Fair: a musi-

cal boat ride with mechanical dolls representing the children of the world—a

symbol of international unity, goodwill, and global peace. Walt decided that it’s a

small world was an opportunity to stretch the creative muscles of his Imagineers,

the team who contributed to the success of Disneyland (which opened in 1955),

and he wanted Mary Blair and her designs to lead the way. She was motivated

by several factors: First, Walt personally chose her and offered his confidence

and trust; second, it was a project involving children; and, finally, her designs

would be showcased in a new dimensional form over which she would maintain

creative carte blanche. After meetings at the studio in Burbank, Blair returned

to her home studio in Great Neck, Long Island, ready to stretch her creative mus-

cles. Soon she was regularly sending to the West Coast a remarkable series of

collage designs that astonished her Imagineering colleagues.

“This stuff started pouring in. Just wonderful!” marveled her friend and

coworker Rolly Crump. “It was the single biggest project that was ever given

to her and she was able to just go nuts!” In dozens of brilliantly colored assem-

blages, she combined wallpaper cuttings, colored paper, cellophane, and acrylics

in interlocking geometric and organic shapes to bring a “small world” to life.

Blair’s collages, comments Karal Ann Marling, were “like Frank Lloyd Wright

married to Andy Warhol!” 9 For Walt, who never gave up on anything, “It was the

climax,” noted Ben Sharpsteen (Disney director and producer) of “all the years

that [he] spent trying to bring Mary Blair’s influence into his productions.” For

Mary Blair, as Crump put it, “It was like she’d died and gone to heaven.” 10

“I guess you could call it theatre-in-the-round, but it’s really much more,”

Blair told a reporter, explaining the ride’s interactive combination of audio-

animatronic dolls, music, and audience participation.

Using the wooden box lids as canvases, they shared layout and coloring duties

on five spontaneous dimensional paintings. “We did it as a team,” Crump

recalls. “Then we glued some stuff on for hair.” The hair came from a box

Crump sent containing extra glitter, jewels, and paint, “in case anything got

hurt or broken.” On the box’s cover he wrote “Instant Small World. Just Add

Gin.” “She and I had a delightful time,” Crumb recalls. “It was absolutely

marvelous. I loved her dearly.” 12

Walt and Mary’s next big project was unveiled in November 1966 at the new

Jules Stein Eye Institute at the UCLA Center for Health Sciences. In the chil-

dren’s section of the outpatient clinic, Blair designed a large (220-square-foot)

mural of fired clay tiles in transparent colors. The design incorporates the door

to the examination room and depicts happy children from around the world, a

friendly welcome to ameliorate young patients’ going-to-the-doctor fears.

The Ceramic Mural, a 16mm educational film released in 1967, is a valuable

and rare document of Mary Blair discussing and showing her step-by-step

creative process. Appearing on camera—attractive, cool, and chic in clothes

that she designed—and speaking in a husky voiceover, she demonstrates how

she designed the eye clinic mural. In those precomputer days, the techniques

for transferring small sketches to a large mural were painstakingly ponderous

and slow, involving manually moving slide projectors and making vellum paper

drawings on-site to scale. Here a narrator in the film explains:

First, the small original sketch had to be enlarged to a full-size

drawing. These grid squares represent the individual tiles, which

would compose the finished mural. Now Mary projected a trans-

parency of the original art full-scale directly on the paper to be

drawn upon. The projector was moved back and forth to adjust the

size. First small drawings of the children were enlarged for accu-

rate placement on the lines of the grid.

Mary Blair’s voiceover explains her techniques while performing them:

In planning a mural such as this, the first consideration is the

area in which it will be installed. The surrounding colors and light

sources will influence both color and design. Perhaps most import-

ant is the medium in which the work will be executed. In this case,

ceramic tile. The startling thing about working in ceramics is the

great brilliance and clarity of the finished color. I have often com-

pared it to the brilliance of a watercolor while still wet. But it is dif-

ficult to put on paper the idea that you know will eventually appear

in the brilliant ceramic glazes, and the artist must keep his concept

clearly in his mind as he designs. Enlarging a small sketch to such

great size is much more than a mechanical process. The dimen-

sions must be enlarged accurately, but there is a great difference

between a 20-inch design and a 20-foot one. The large expansion

becomes an original work in itself and the creative processes must

continue through to its completion. 13

After years of innovation and delighting people all over the world, Walt Disney,

Mary Blair’s champion, died on December 15, 1966. “When he died Mary was

Preliminary design for europeit’s a small world, 1964opaque watercolor on paper | 10 x 13 inches

Ceramic mural by Mary Blair at the Jules Stein eye institute children’s ward, circa 1966

The audience travels right through it in small boats, seeing its five

main areas unfold as the boat floats along a serpentine canal. The

audience moves, the performers move, and everyone—especially

the children—seem to have a grand time. 11

Blair’s it’s a small world attraction and (its title song) was an immediate hit.

When the attraction was duplicated in Disneyland in 1966 and Walt Disney World

in 1971, Blair made dozens more collages for exteriors and new scenes.

In the Walt Disney Family Museum exhibition are two prototype dolls for

it’s a small world, as well as two unusual items cocreated by Mary Blair and

Rolly Crump during the installation of the boat ride attraction at the World’s

Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York. Supervising the opening of wooden

boxes containing the dolls and props and answering the staff’s occasional

questions, the two artists soon grew bored. “Suddenly Mary and I decided

we’d start painting because we didn’t have anything to do,” Crump said.

34 35

destroyed,” Gyo Fujikawa, the well-known children’s book illustrator observed.

“So sad and unhappy. She wept.” 14

Mary remembered Walt as “one of the most wonderful men in the world.

“He was a family man, and he was willing to go along with all my commut-

ing expense . . . Walt had a great deal of courage in starting new projects and

in encouraging talent. He knew talent when he found it.” Before he died, Walt

arranged to involve her in designing large-scale projects into the early 1970s. 15

Two such projects include huge Mary Blair murals (54 feet in length and 15

feet high) that face each other on two buildings (Adventures Through Inner Space

and the Bell System CircleVision), built in the summer of 1967 for Tomorrowland

at Disneyland. The corridor of textured ceramic tile murals was titled “The

Spirit of Creative Energies Among Children.” Here Walt saw Blair’s stylizations

capable of conveying reassuring messages about global communication and sci-

entific advancements in satellites and solar and wind energy. 16

The last of Blair’s large-scale ceramic murals is located inside the Contem-

porary Resort Hotel at Walt Disney World in Florida, which opened in 1971.

Eighteen-thousand hand-painted tiles appear on a 90-foot elevator shaft in a

mosaic depicting American Indian children, flowers, and animals in settings

and colors abstracted from the Grand Canyon. Blair found inspiration in South-

western prehistoric rock pictographs, Pueblo murals and sand paintings, and

her trips to Mexico three decades before. The “Mary Blair child” design, adapted

from The Three Caballeros’ “La Posadas,” is ubiquitous in the work.

Blair’s special charm is on full display on the huge mural, as well as a playful

mystery. Many visitors to the site wonder why a striped goat located near the top

has five legs. The artist never explained herself, but in her research she may have

discovered the Cheyenne “Spirit Bead” tradition. To Cheyenne tribeswomen,

spending hundreds of hours creating geometric patterned artworks made of

beads and quills was a spiritual act, a prayer to the Great Spirit. Intentionally

they would weave or sew a wrong-colored bead into a perfect pattern as an act of

humility, recognizing “the inherent imperfection of humans. Presuming that a

human could create something perfect would be an affront to the true perfection

of the gods.” 17 Maggie Richardson, Blair’s niece, recalls that her aunt Mary was

“always very spiritual . . . she would talk about [how] God is inside of you.” 18

The Contemporary Resort Hotel mural is a monumental work of art that takes

one’s breath away. It even did so to the artist: “Of course I had seen the finished

tiles laid out on a large table in sections as Interpace [tile division of Franciscan

Ceramics] finished firing the final work,” Blair recalled. “When I eventually went

to the opening of Disney World in Florida and walked into that giant concourse,

my reaction was ‘Oh—wow!’ ” 19

With Blair’s patron Walt Disney gone, no new commissions were forthcom-

ing from the Disney company. In her last seven years, she made small personal

artworks she called “semi-dimensional paintings, which are part painting and

part constructions. When there are enough of them I will have an exhibition

possibly in San Francisco.” However, illness and personal problems took a toll,

and Mary died of a cerebral hemorrhage on July 26, 1978, at age sixty-six.

“Funny thing about her,” observed animator Preston Blair, Mary’s brother-in-

law, some years after her death, “she started [out] drawing somewhat of the same

thing as Lee—big watercolor splashes. One thing she told me: ‘I don’t think I

could draw another watercolor if I wanted to.’ She’d become accustomed to the

design, and she was so successful at it. It [fine art watercolors] just wasn’t her cup

of tea anymore. She was very successful at being liked as an artist.” 20

To speculate on the road not taken—what Mary Blair might have accomplished

had she concentrated on fine art watercolors or ceramics or purely abstract art—is

futile and unnecessary. Mary Blair chose to focus her multitudinous artistic gifts in

the commercial sphere. It was her original goal at Chouinard: to become an illustra-

tor. Mary, who “always knew what she wanted,” as her sister Margaret often claimed,

and was also “very determined in a nice way,” always got what she sought. Her artistic

gifts, however, were so large, her versatility so encompassing, and her curiosity and

bravery so bold, she went way beyond mere illustration to a major, diverse career in

the areas of film, costumes, set design, fine art, animation concepts, advertisements

and books, theme park attractions, ceramics, sculpture, and collage.

“To create one’s own world takes courage,” said Georgia O’Keeffe. Mary

Blair’s fearless artistic sensibilities and magical paintbrush created an intense

reality all her own. No matter the subject matter or medium, the feeling of joy

that she took in her limitless creativity is palpable, and it continues to communi-

cate and fascinate viewers of all ages all over the world.

—John CanemakerPhoto documenting the construction process of Mary Blair’s mural for the Contemporary resort Hotel, circa 1971

36 37

Learningthe Rules

In this section of the exhibition are examples of work that mary

blair (then known as mary robinson) made as a scholarship

student at the Chouinard art institute in Los angeles. starting

in the fall of 1931, she began working at the school with the well-

known american illustrator Pruett Carter, with whom she contin-

ued to study privately after graduation. Carter’s instruction in the

art of composition and his rules for staging pictures and visualiz-

ing expressive emotions profoundly influenced the young woman.

he inspired her and encouraged her latent talent for dramatizing

a scene, which came to fruition when she began working as a con-

cept artist at the Walt Disney studio.

in addition, there are several paintings exhibited that mary

robinson blair made as a member of the California Water Color

society, a regionalist art movement defined by representational

watercolors documenting everyday life on the Pacific Coast. The

president of the society, starting in 1935, was mary’s husband, Lee

blair, a fellow Chouinard scholarship student, whom she wed in

1934. in both solo and group shows, the blairs exhibited their work

in the mid- to late 1930s.

however, the need to augment their income led both artists to

work at L.a. animation studios, including the Walt Disney studio.

Examples of mary blair’s early Disney watercolor concept artworks

include Dumbo (1941) and Baby Ballet, a never-produced segment

for a 1941 addition to 1940’s Fantasia.

Stormy Beach, circa 1930swatercolor on paper | 211⁄2 x 26 3⁄4 inches

41

Elegy in a Country Churchyard, circa 1930swatercolor on paper | 14 2⁄3 x 15 1⁄4 inches

untitled, circa 1930swatercolor on paper | 14 1⁄2 x 15 1⁄2 inches

44 45

The Lady in Red, circa 1930swatercolor and ink on paper | 32 1⁄2 x 26 1⁄2 inches

untitled (minister and lady in white), circa 1930swatercolor on paper | 32 2⁄3 x 24 1⁄3 inches

Sick Call, circa 1930scharcoal on paper | 113⁄4 x 14 3⁄4 inches

46 47

Breakingthe Rules

In august 1941, Lee and mary blair became part of a group

of Disney studio artists chosen by Walt Disney to travel with

him to south america. it was during this time that mary blair

developed her vibrant and colorful painting style, translating her

feelings about the 1941 tour of south america into vital, brilliantly

hued impressions with a heightened stylization.

The observational skills, enormous empathy, and sense of

wonder that found new expression on this trip are on full display

in the two framed portraits of Peruvian children at left, which she

painted during her visit to south america. They were among the

few Disney artworks ever displayed in the Los angeles home of

Walt and Lillian Disney, an indication of how special mary and her

art were to Walt and his family.

Walt’s “discovery” of mary blair’s great and multitudinous

artistic gifts during the 1941 south america tour led him to assign

her numerous projects inside and outside the studio during the

war and postwar years. on the following pages is imagery for

diverse projects, such as the Latin american features Saludos Amigos (1943) and The Three Caballeros (1945); the omnibus

features Make Mine Music (1946) and Melody Time (1948); the com-

bination live-action and animation features Song of the South (1946)

and So Dear to My Heart (1948); and the feature-length animations

Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953).

blair traveled often during this period to mexico, Cuba, ireland,

and areas of the united states to gather pictorial material, creat-

ing dynamic pieces that still capture the imagination today.

Peruvian girl, circa 1941watercolor on paper | 10 1⁄4 x 7 2⁄3 inches

Peruvian boy, circa 1941watercolor on paper | 10 1⁄4 x 7 2⁄3 inches

60 61

Visual development The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, 1949opaque watercolor on paperboard | 7 x 8 inches

Visual development The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, 1949opaque watercolor on paper | 8 x 91⁄2 inches

84 85

Visual development Cinderella, 1950opaque watercolor on paperboard | 6 1⁄2 x 8 1⁄2 inches

Visual development Cinderella, 1950opaque watercolor on paperboard | 71 ⁄4 x 8 inches

94 95

Visual development Cinderella, 1950opaque watercolor on paperboard | 10 x 12 inches

Visual development Cinderella, 1950opaque watercolor on paperboard | 12 1⁄2 x 151⁄2 inches

98

Visual development Peter Pan, 1953opaque watercolor on paperboard | 7 1⁄4 x 7 7⁄8 inches

Visual development Peter Pan, 1953opaque watercolor on paperboard | 7 2⁄3 x 83⁄4 inches

118 119

Visual development Peter Pan, 1953opaque watercolor on paperboard | 81⁄3 x 181⁄8 inches

120 121

Preliminary design collageit’s a small world, 1964postcard | 4 x 6 inches

Preliminary design for South Seas it’s a small world, 1964opaque watercolor on paper | 11 x 14 inches

Preliminary design for europe it’s a small world, 1964opaque watercolor on paper | 10 x 13 inches

166

Published by The Walt Disney Family Foundation Press®, LLC.104 Montgomery Street in the PresidioSan Francisco, CA 94129

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ISBN: 978-1-61628-793-1ISBN: 1-61628-793-4

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 12014 2015 2016 2017 2018Printed in China by Toppan Leefung.

AR T WORk LEnDERs

Craig and Gisele Barto (photo courtesy of californiawatercolor.com): 50 Pam Burns-Clair Family: 103–105 Jeanne Chamberlain (The Estate of Mary Blair): 161 (top left, middle, and bottom right) Jeanne Chamberlain and Maggie Richardson (The Estate of Mary Blair): 8, 16 (all but bottom center and bottom right), 17 (top right and bottom right) 20, 35–36, 46, 53, 73–75, 150–159, 170 –171, 175 Collection of Brian Bliss (photo courtesy of californiawatercolor.com): 51 California Institute of the Arts Institute Archive: 11 (top) John Canemaker: 55 Carroll Family Collection (photo courtesy of californiawatercolor.com): 14, 49 Fred Cline: 12, 42–43 Alice Davis: 172–173 Mike and Jeanne Glad: 17 (top right) Mike and Tammy Gabriel: 72 The Goldberg Collection: 44–45 The Don Hahn Collection: 25, 80 –81 Rudy and Debbie Lord: 40 Ron Lytle: 48 Gift of Ron and Diane Miller: 26, 28, 54, 62 (right), 85, 92, 94–95, 97, 100 (right), 111–113, 115–117, 122 (left), 124–125, 127–129, 166 (left) Joanna Miller: 100 (left) Gift of Walter E. D. Miller: 87 Collection of Stuart Ng: 47 (right) Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators: 11 (bottom) Random House LLC: 2, 33 (left and center), 132, 134–145, 148–149 Maggie Richardson (The Estate of Mary Blair): 161 (bottom left and top right) James Tim Walker: 52 Walt Disney Family Foundation: 4, 6, 16 (bottom center), 19, 21, 22, 27, 30, 33 (right), 34, 60, 62 (left), 63–71, 76–78, 82–84, 86, 88–91, 93, 96, 98 –99, 101–102, 106 –110, 114, 118–121, 122 (right), 123 (right), 146–147, 160 (top), 162–163, 165, 166 (right), 167–169 The Walt Disney Company: 16 (bottom right), 17 (left top and bottom), 18 Mark and Lily Weissman: 47 (left)

AR T WORk COpYRIgHT HOLDER s

All images are © The Estate of Mary Blair except where noted below.

Disney: 4, 15, 16 (center top and bottom, right bottom), 17 (top left and bottom left), 18–22, 24–28, 30 –31, 34, 36, 54–57, 60–72, 74–129, 155 (bottom row and top row center left), 160, 165–171 Random House LLC: 2 (The New Golden Songbook, copyright 1955, copyright renewed 1983 by Random House); 33 (The Up and Down Book, copyright 1964, copyright renewed 1992 by Random House); 132–135 (I Can Fly by Ruth

Krauss, copyright 1951, copyright renewed 1979 by Random House); 136–137 (Baby’s House by Gelolo McHugh, copyright 1950, copyright renewed 1978 by Random House); 138–141 (The Golden Book of Little Verses by Miriam Clark Potter, copyright 1953, copyright renewed 1981 by Random House); 142–147 (The Up and Down Book, copyright 1964, copyright renewed 1992 by Random House); 148 –149 (The New Golden Songbook, copyright 1955, copyright renewed 1983 by Random House) Unknown: 11 (bottom)

ACknOWLED gMEnTs

Diane Disney Miller, to whom I dedicate this cat-alog, originally proposed a Mary Blair exhibition for the Walt Disney Family Museum and offered me the exciting challenge of being its curator. Diane was always a positive leader and creative dynamo. I miss her and regret that she did not live to see the exhibition realized.

I am grateful for the solid support and encouragement given to me from the beginning by Ron Miller, Diane’s husband, and the Walt Disney Family Foundation.

At the Walt Disney Family Museum, I have been most fortunate to work with a wonder-ful and dedicated team, including Kirsten Komoroske, executive director; Brenda Litzinger, registrar; Mary Beth Culler, public programs manager; John Stroh, manager of Audio-Visual; Hillary Lyden, interpretive coordinator; Caitlin Moneypenny-Johnston, marketing and commu-nications manager; and Mark Gibson, digital assets manager.

It was a pleasure to work closely with the indispensable and knowledgeable Michael Labrie, director of collections and exhibitions, and the gifted Marina Villar Delgado, exhibition and design manager, who designed a setting for Mary Blair’s art that is at once playful and serene.

A majority of Mary Blair concept paintings made for Disney films and several personal artifacts in the exhibition are from the collection of the Walt Disney Family Foundation. This extensive artwork of the WDFF has been aug-mented and additional light shed on Mary Blair’s eclectic career through the generosity of several outside lenders, including:

Richard J. Berenson, Society of Illustrators; Michael Johnson Fine Arts; Dave Tourje,

Chouinard Foundation; Diane Muldrow, editorial director, Golden Books/Random House; Brian and Pam Bliss; Rudy and Debbie Lord; Joanna Miller; Don Hahn; Craig and Gigi Barto; Eric and Susan Goldberg; Fred Cline; Joe and Leah Carroll; Mike Gabriel; Ron Lytle; Stuart Ng; Mark Weissman; James Tim Walker; Mike Glad; and Pam Burns-Clair.

I am especially grateful to Maggie Richardson and Jeanne Chamberlain, the artist’s devoted nieces, for their enthusiastic contributions of additional loans of rare artworks and artifacts, and patient replies to my constant questions.

For various kindnesses extended to me during the course of my work, I express warm thanks to Rolly Crump; Alice Davis; Ross Care; Neil Grauer; Michael Giaimo; Charles Solomon; Michael Barrier; J. B. Kaufman; Russell and Karen Merritt; Karal Ann Marling; Leonard S. Marcus; Ted Thomas and Kuniko Okubo Thomas; Dan Shefelman, assistant professor FIT; Karen Trivette Cannell, MLS, asstistant professor Head of Special Collections and FIT Archives, Fashion Institute of Technology – SUNY; Karl and Denise Cohen; Kendall Haney; and Sheila M. Saxby.

At Weldon Owen Publishing, it was a distinct pleasure to work with the superb team of Lucie Parker, senior lifestyle editor; Kelly Booth, creative director; Roger Shaw, vice-president and publisher; Lorraine Rath, art director; and the creative book designer Debbie Berne.

Thanks to Robert Cornfield, for his cogent advice, as always. On the home front, I want to thank my husband, Joseph Kennedy, for his positive suggestions and all-enabling love.

Weldon Owen would like to thank Emily Clark, Hilary Seeley, and Marisa Solís for editorial assistance; Rachel Lopez Metzger for design expertise; and John Lee/Artmix for original photography.

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