Image: The Colors of Mary Blair, Walt Disney Animation Research Library Collection
Image: Cartoon Modern – www.cartoonmodern.blogsome.com
Blair won an art scholarship to Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles . She graduated at the height of the Depression in 1933. The economic climate forced her to abandon her dream of a fine arts career. She took a job in the animation unit at MGM Studios. She married an artist and continued to develop her color eye. Blair started using her fine arts training to inform her work in animation.
In 1940, Disney recruited Blair where she worked under the title of color stylist and designer for 30 years. Her collaborators described her exciting use of color on a par with Matisse. She painted color compositions using complex tertiary hues. She would place two different chromatic intensities of color next to one another which was revolutionary for animation at that time.
Image: The Art and Flair of Mary Blair, John Canemaker – Disney Editions
Her inventive palettes of muddy colors with pure colors created a visual tension that heightened the sense of drama. Her Peter Pan and Cinderella colorations shaped the future of Disney animated features.
Image: Cartoon Modern – www.cartoonmodern.blogsome.com
Disney asked her to create the character design of It’s a Small World, for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.
Image: The Art and Flair of Mary Blair, John Canemaker – Disney Editions
After she left Disney, she continued to apply her original and distinctive color skills to free lance mural design, graphic design and the illustration of children’s books.
To give you an insight into Blair’s character, here are two excerpts I found.
Joyce Carson who worked with Mary Blair was interviewed by Disney Historian Jim Korkis.
“Mary sewed and designed her own distinctively stylish, color coordinated clothes. She had lots of glasses and a lot of different colored contact lenses as well. She used to coordinate her eyewear to go with the outfit she was wearing that day."
John Canemaker, tenured professor and director of the film animation program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, authored The Flair of Mary Blair. “Blair juggled her family and creative life. She postponed starting a family until she was thirty six. Even after the birth of her second child three and a half years later, Mrs. Blair continued create dazzling color compositions.”
Image: Cartoon Modern – www.cartoonmodern.blogsome.com
Blair died in 1978. She was the very first woman to be honored as a Disney Legend. I would like to think she will be remembered for her prolific and joyful creativity, her exuberant color palette, and her pioneering spirit as a woman in the arts.
Image: The Art and Flair of Mary Blair, John Canemaker – Disney Editions
The Colors of Mary Blair
Walt Disney Animation Research Library Collection
The Art and Flair of Mary Blair
John Canemaker – Disney Editions
Cartoon Modern – www.cartoonmodern.blogsome.com
Disney Legends – www.legends.disney.go.com
