The Walt Disney Museum's Fred Moore Q&A

Is it 2021 yet? Because as of this writing in June 2020, it sometimes feels as though it may never get here. I think every one of us lives in hope for a better, brighter, wiser tomorrow to come.

In a\this time of upheaval unprecedented for almost everyone alive, writing about animation history can feel like a pursuit too trivial to attempt, but there's still value in communicating and hopefully evoking an understanding of what's come before in our art form. Animation artists are fortunate to be able to continue working on projects of all kinds, sharing work, drawing inspiration from each other, as well as from the best of the past.

From Andreas' collection, a Fred rough from Pluto Plays Football(unproduced, 1952)

Last fall I prepared answers to questions submitted by the Walt Disney Family Museum about Fred Moore and his relationship with Mickey Mouse. Initially this was meant to run concurrently with their exhibition on Mickey(beautifully curated by Andreas Deja), but a backlog resulted in it going live shortly after the exhibition's close in February. It can be seen on their blog along with many more fascinating posts on all subjects of Disney studio history, Here are links to my Q&A, presented in two parts.

This is also a reminder that the Museum continues to offer great programs-online, for now. Please pay them a visit, virtually and otherwise. They have much to offer.

Artist and Author Jenny Lerew Talks Mickey Mouse and Animator Fred Moore, Part 1

And here is a direct link to Part 2.

John Canemaker is blogging. You should read him.

The banner for Canemaker's blog, with self-caricature

If I always seem to be writing something about John Canemaker on this blog, there's a good reason-or  rather, many, many reasons: the Academy Award-winning filmmaker, NYU professor and author is always busy producing, hosting or posting something worth taking note of. So shoot me!

The last time I saw him, a year ago at the opening of the Pinocchio exhibit he curated at the Walt Disney Family Museum, he mentioned he was thinking of starting a blog. "Do it!" I burbled, I'm sure he heard the same thing everywhere he voiced the thought, and so he did. I have several favorite authors of nonfiction-luckily for me, one of them also happens to write about animation, and now he's writing regularly-no waiting years for the next breath of clean, crisp narrative air. And boy, do we need it now. He's called it John Canemaker's Animated Eye, and it's off and running with great stuff.

Just since February Canemaker has covered evenings with artists Floyd Norman, Jules Feiffer and Suzan Pitt-as disparate as they are fascinating; a piece about the unproduced projects compiled in the Disney studio's 1944 book release Surprise Package (in particular the Dick Huemer-Joe Grant original story "The Square World"; a reminiscence of a special conference on story in 1988 that gathered an incredible array of artists from Frank and Ollie to Joe Ranft to discuss the craft; a post about, of all people, Gertrude Lawrence and Walt meeting backstage during her run in the brilliant Kurt Weill/Moss Hart musical "Lady In the Dark"-with a surprising connection involving a champion of the work of Canemaker subject and animation genius Winsor McCay.

Gertrude Lawrence, Bob Brotherton and Walt Disney in 1942. To read more about this encounter and the young man in the middle-and his other animation connections-go to John Canemaker's blog.

This week, he writes of attending the premiere of "Dear Basketball", Kobe Bryant's animated collaboration with Glen Keane, John Williams and an elite group of animators assembled by Glen-one of whom is a recent graduate of Canemaker's NYU animation department, Aidan Terry. Terry joined the team after a recommendation by John in response to a query by the project's producer. 

The above is just a bit of what he's put online to date, and all of his posts are as much fun to look at as to read. Like one of his many books the accompanying photos and artwork in each one are rare, historic and fascinating. Going through them, it's remarkable how many connecting threads there are between the decades, cities, people and of all things, the art of animation and just art in general. And as for that last-make sure to look at the page of his own paintings. They're as colorful and graceful as the writer himself.

Be sure and bookmark his page and have a look through his animated eye.

"Ivy Wall", a painting by John Canemaker, from his website.

Artwork for a card, from Canemaker's website.

Wish Upon A Star: The Disney Family Museum's new exhibit devoted to Pinocchio-curated by John Canemaker

The Diane Disney Miller Hall at the museum with original "Pinocchio" posters on display.

Film critics, animation professionals, students and afficionados generally agree that the first five feature films released by the Walt Disney Studio achieved a standard they never surpassed. Where opinons diverge is which was the greatest, "best", most satisfying or artistically successful: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", Pinocchio", "Fantasia", "Dumbo" or "Bambi"? Just looking at the list makes comparisons and rankings seem beside the point. It's stupefying to consider what one place of business managed to produce within a span of seven-odd years, expanding and refining the art of animated film at a pace never equaled since.

For me, the Disney studio's pinnacle was "Pinocchio". From its soaring, wistful opening music to exploring the darkest places a fairy tale can go and back again, it delivers entertainment via animated design and acting polished to the nth degree. Even the credits are beautifully presented. Imagine working with this group-for more than half of them, it would be their first time supervising:

Now a new exhibit at the Walt Disney Family Museum makes it possible for a visitor to immerse themselves in the process of creating this magnificent film. Curated by the Academy Award-winning animator/historian/writer/professor John Canemaker, it's a beautifully presented, comprehensive journey through the making of an animated feature at Disney's in the late 1930s. In other words, for an animation student, fan or professional, it's bliss.

To my knowledge there's never been as much original material from one of the original five productions on view before. Featuring materials from the Disney Museum's holdings, the Walt Disney Studio Archives, and many, many private sources, it's likely only an artist with the reputation, awareness and taste of Canemaker could have pulled it all off. The exhibit fills the two floors of the Diane Disney Miller Hall at the museum, starting on the second floor with Collodi's original book, and channeling the visitor through production design to story, animation, effects and camera. 

Film critics, animation professionals, students and afficionados generally agree that the first five feature films released by the Walt Disney Studio achieved a standard they never surpassed. Where opinons diverge is which was the greatest, "best", most satisfying or artistically successful: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", Pinocchio", "Fantasia", "Dumbo" or "Bambi"? Just looking at the list makes comparisons and rankings seem beside the point. It's stupefying to consider what one place of business managed to produce within a span of seven-odd years, expanding and refining the art of animated film at a pace never equaled since.

Walt pitching "Pinocchio".

All this is represented by a collection of over 300 treasures, including Ward Kimball's continuity script, original paintings by Tenggren, drawings by Hurter, many story sketches and layout drawings, animation roughs-both the originals under glass and reproduced on tables as thick sheafs of animation that can be flipped by guests. An area designed as Gepetto's workshop would be features original plaster maquettes of many of the characters made in Joe Grant's "model department"-including two different sculptures of Monstro the whale, Stromboli's caravan, and "real-sized", working marionettes of Pinocchio and one of the Dutch puppets from Stromboli's show(these are particularly-and typically-detailed and beautiful).

From the Instagram account of the WDFM.

Courtesy The WDFM Instagram account.

In the animation area, you can pick up a phone to hear Frank Thomas describing how to handle animating Pinocchio-copied from a disc recording made by Frank, probably for the benefit of those animators and assistants who weren't invited to the live lecture he gave on the subject. In another room, a model has been made of the multiplane camera setup, showing visitors how the cameramen photographed the still-eyepopping pan/truck-ins in the film and gave it it's sense of depth. Just incredibly cool.

There's so much there to see-not only a tribute to a beautiful film, but a perfect audio/visual primer to the work of animation production. We can't drop in at Hyperion in 1938 and see what Ward and Milt and Woolie are up to as they break for lunch, alas-but this is as close as we can hope to get. I bang a drum for the Disney Museum every so often-really, far too many people, myself included, put off getting up to San Francisco to visit. By all means make the trip before January 9th and see what John Canemaker and the creative and welcoming Museum folks have wrought. You're going to love it.

John Canemaker, curator. Photograph from his website.

"Wish Upon A Star: The Art Of Pinocchio" runs through January 9th, 2017.

The Walt Disney Family Museum

104 Montgomery Street in the Presidio, San Francisco, CA 94129

415.345.6800

Museum hours are 10am–6pm. Last entry 4:45pm.

Open daily except Tuesdays, January 1, Thanksgiving Day, and December 25.

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Women In Animation

This Saturday, March 15, I'm moderating a panel at the Walt Disney Family Museum where I'll be talking with Claire Keane, Lorelay Bove, and Brenda Chapman about their experiences in the animation business, and their lives as animation artists.

Last October the museum also asked if I would write an essay for their quarterly on the subject of women in animation, past and present, which follows here.


In the 1970s there was one must-have for every aspiring young animator's bookshelf: Christopher Finch's oversized, heavy and beautiful The Art of Walt Disney.  Illustrated books detailing the history of animation, and more specifically, the Disney Studio, were almost nonexistent at the time; and at over 400 pages the Finch book was something I pored over for hours. I'd already fixed on the idea of being an animator, seeing it as the perfect career to marry my love of drawing, film, and performance.  I considered animation to be "the illusion of life": turning lines on a page into characters that lived and breathed in an invented world of color, design and graphic imagination.

Every page of Finch's book was filled with story sketches, animator's roughs, background paintings, and photographs– not just of Walt Disney, but also of his artists working at their desks, drawing just as I did and looking not much older than I was. But they were working on such memorable films as Snow White, Pinocchio, and Bambi.  Decades before I was born they'd managed to achieve the gold standard: working at the greatest animation studio in the world on films whose influence would long outlive them.

The old images fascinated me and I wanted to know more about them. One was particularly striking.  It showed a young woman, Retta Scott, animating on Fantasia.  While far from being an expert in either social history or 1930s studio-hiring practices, I knew that a woman employed as an animator in those days was rare, and that this had been the case from the beginning. The form of cartooning which preceded and inspired animated cartoons and newspaper comic strips, also had many more men than women employed in the field, and this disparity carried over into the new medium of animated cartoons. With rare exceptions, cartooning/animation work became a "guy's thing," though the intended audience for the cartoons and comic strips was both male and female.

So, by the mid-1930s, it seemed that any woman with artistic talent or experience who applied to a studio for work in animation was limited to a career in the "ink and paint" department, doing the crucial but creatively stultifying tasks of tracing animators' drawings on celluloid and painting the underside. This was by necessity an assembly-line sort of job, and while the women who did it were rightfully proud of their skills, the work certainly didn't allow for individual expression.  But there was Retta Scott, engaged in what was a traditionally male job. She was an anomaly—a female animator!  I later learned that Scott had worked in the story department as well as in animation, and in fact, there had been other women assigned to the story and development departments, including Sylvia Moberly-Holland, Bianca Majolie, and most famously, Retta's friend Mary Blair, whose career and influence would extend further than many of her colleagues'.

In the 1930s and '40s, a confluence of talent, opportunity, timing and connections were required for a talented woman to land a creative job at Disney.  This was also true for the men but to a lesser degree. It's impossible to know how many women who aspired to be animation artists were actively discouraged from trying, but certainly some were, as evidenced by the Disney Studio's 1930s form letter sent in response to women inquiring about jobs as artists. It stated that "women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men." While clearly untrue when one considers the placement of the women previously mentioned, the letter nonetheless expressed the company's attitude towards the idea of women artists in general.

This was unfortunate since not only were women at the Studio making artistic contributions, their work was also having a positive impact on the history of animation. The work of Mary Blair, in particular, caused a transformation in the look of Disney animation, and the opportunity for her to create stunning art was due to the direct involvement of Walt Disney, whose appreciation of her unique style and sensibility was not hindered at all by her gender. But Blair was a stunning exception; for most women, the opportunities to achieve personal distinction in animation were simply not available. Had it been otherwise, it's anyone's guess who else might have made her mark as Blair was able to.

Throughout my working life I've been asked the question, "Why aren't there more women in animation?" and I've never had an answer. I can only speak for myself and explain why I do what I do—a story that differs little if at all from that told by my female and male colleagues.  But while the question still gets asked, things have changed more rapidly in recent years than ever before. As a student at Calarts in the late 1980s, I was in a class where the guys far outnumbered the girls, and for the first decade or so I was able to tick off the names of all the other females who were somehow involved in animation.

Now, there are so many women working in the field that I can't begin to keep track of them all– many working as I do in story, but also in visual development, animation, character design, and every other classification. Online blogs by aspiring female animation students are even more numerous, and from a cursory check, show ever-increasing sophistication and range in personal style and storytelling ability.  It's a wonderful state of affairs for my industry and for everyone who's involved with the art of animation, and it'll be fascinating to see what the future will look like when a picture of a woman creating animation will draw no special notice at all.

Magic! Color! FLAIR! The World of Mary Blair exhibit is opening March 13, 2014

Is there anyone in animation who isn't excited by the work of Mary Blair?  Oh, probably a few misanthropes or those who go the contrarian route, but Blair's gargantuan reputation grows year after year for good reason. Many have spoken and written about her influence more eloquently than I ever could, but nothing beats seeing the real thing, up close and personal. To this end the Walt Disney Family Museum is opening the largest show to date of Blair's accomplishments both inside and outside animation.  Curated by Oscar-winning animator, writer (and Blair biographer) and NYU professor John Canemaker, this promises to be a must-see, and woe to the lover of Disneyana, animation, graphic art, illustration, midcentury design, and plain old genius who misses it.

 Here's a bit from the Museum's description to whet your appetite:

MAGIC, COLOR, FLAIR: the world of Mary Blair features some 200 works and explores all phases of Blair’s work by examining her artistic development in three major areas: “Learning the Rules”—her student days at Los Angeles’ legendary Chouinard School of Art, and her fine art regionalist watercolors exhibited in the 1930s. “Breaking the Rules”—her artistic breakthrough with boldly colored, stylized concept paintings for classic Disney animated features during the 1940s and 1950s, including Saludos Amigos (1942) and Peter Pan (1953); and “Creating New Worlds”—freelancing in the 1950s in New York where she became a popular illustrator for national advertisements, magazine articles, clothing designs, window displays, theatrical sets, and children’s books.

The exhibition includes Blair’s rarely exhibited student art, which was influenced by the illustrations of her mentor Pruett Carter, and her mid-to-late artworks from the 1930s as a member of the innovative California Water-Color Society which reveal an essential humanism and empathy for her subjects. The exhibition also showcases The Walt Disney Family Museum’s extensive collection of Blair’s conceptual artworks in gouache and watercolor—some of which have never displayed outside The Walt Disney Studios—that reveal the artist’s inexhaustible creativity in design, staging of imagery, visual appeal, and unique color sensibility. 

In addition, Canemaker's biography of Mary, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair, is now republished in an updated edition with a new cover and much-enhanced color reproductions.

The title page from the new exhibition catalog/book.

And there'll be a 172 page exhibition catalog in hardcover, also written by Canemaker. Preview and order it here.


A little digression here: in talking about this show with my coworkers, I'm disappointed to find a fair number of southern Californians haven't yet visited the Disney Museum, and there are also a few who aren't even aware it exists.  The latter I can't explain, but I have to ruefully acknowledge that as close as San Francisco is, given the schedules and demands of working life it sometimes seems that it might as well be located in Bangor, Maine.

Happily for all of us this isn't the case, and I would urge anyone with the least interest in Walt Disney and the animation arts to just get in the car and go. I've been guilty too, not having made the bay area trip for several years until last November, when I attended a panel on the work of Bruno Bozzetto with Canemaker, John Musker, and David Silverman, and saw their fantastic exhibit on Tyrus Wong. It was a one-day trip up and back, and absolutely worth it. The museum is truly an amazing place, and if animation folk want it to continue to exist, we need to support its mission and hopefully, attend its exhibitions and events.

Magic Color Flair the world of Mary Blair runs from March 13 to September 7.

The Walt Disney Family Museum 104 Montgomery Street The Presidio, San Francisco San Francisco, CA 94129 415.345.6800

MUSEUM HOURS: Open daily 10am–6pm, except every Tues, Jan 1, Thanksgiving & Dec 25

Devin Crane at Galerie Arludik, Sept 5-Oct 31

Where has the summer gone? For me it's been spent in a lot of work wielding the Wacom stylus, seeing films, and travel-my first vacation in 18 months.

Meanwhile there's been plenty to comment on, take note of and blog about-including this new show in Paris of paintings and drawings by my friend, Dreamworks visdev artist Devin Crane. It's just opened at Galerie Arludik. He's shown there before, several years ago, but this time there are some of his lovely drawings on display as well as his jewel-toned paintings. If you're going to be near the Île Saint Louis in the near future, go and check it out-they really must be seen in person.

La Belle et la Bete

19” x 24”(48.26 x 60.96 cm)

Graphite on Paper

Midnightat the Hotel Costes

17” x 28”(43.18 x 71.12 cm)

Acrylic on Wood Panel


 

 

Margaux

8” x 10”(20.32 x 25.4 cm)

Oil on Canvas

Devin Crane: Dreams, Fashion and Fairy Tales

Galerie Arludik

Paris, France

Thursday, September 5 - 21, 2013

Adam and Dog: The ineffable beauty of drawn animation

Drawings of Dog by Minkyu Lee.
 

Drawing of Adam by Minkyu Lee.
 

in·ef·fa·ble

/ɪnˈɛfəbəl/ Show Spelleadjective

1. incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible: ineffable joy.

 

One late night about eighteen months ago, my officemate and fellow story artist Justin Hunt walked in with an animation sequence under his arm. It was old-school 2D, immediately identifiable by the sandwich of paper and cardboard secured with extra-long rubber bands. Here was something novel! Surrounded by cintiqs and working on cg films in studios where prosaic objects like pencils and paper are barely in evidence, just seeing a sheaf of hand drawn animation produces plenty of thrills-and I hadn't even bugged him to flip it for me yet.  When he did, I became more and more interested; the drawings were lovely. Just based on that one short scene I wanted to see the whole thing, though I'd have to wait a while. And I wanted to know why and how it was being done.

It turned out that Justin was one of a small, tight-knit group of friends helping Minkyu Lee complete the animation for a short film he was writing, directing and storyboarding, and animating. And designing, and painting all the backgrounds.

I first wrote about Minkyu and his film "Adam and Dog" a year ago, just before it won an Annie award. It was in an earlier, slightly unfinished state at that time, but the elements that make it the wonderful film that it is were all solidly there. Now it's another year, and it's one of 2013's five nominees for the Academy Award for animated short.  It's a richly deserved nod, and as I'm one of the corny ones who actually believes the old canard that the real honor is simply in being nominated by one's peers(in this case, members of the animation branch of AMPAS), it's already a winner, as are the other 4 shorts in that category.  But this film is special to me; it pushes all my buttons, and I thought I'd have a go at explaining why. 

Adam, completely comfortable in his Eden. Drawing by Minkyu Lee.

 

 

 



It's not necessarily difficult to make drawings move, but it can be well-nigh impossible to make them real-to live, to breathe, to exist on their own terms in whatever world the filmmaker decides to present them. The Story of Adam and Dog is simple, and all the more powerful for being so: The Fall from the point of view of the first dog in Eden. Although, being a dog, he sees and understands nothing so much as the joy of finding and bestowing all his loyalty and love on the first human being he meets and bonds with(and eventually, it's hinted, the second one also).

What I've described has the potential for a charming story, and a sweet and clever short could have been made that was just that and nothing more. But-and here's the thing that's so difficult to describe as cogently as I'd like-in this case, this film has been crafted with every element contributing to a result that has the layered, emotional impact of the very best of any sort of animation, short form or long. Or any sort of film making, for that matter. What's called traditional character animation-that is, drawings and paintings in two dimensions-just aren't featured in this sort of style anymore, and by style I mean not just the lushness and soft, illustrative quality of its look, but the serious, thoughtful and truly unique pacing, the choices of shots, the editing. I think it was the pure film making that Minkyu employed that really bowled me over, beyond the visceral pleasure I took in seeing drawn characters inhabiting a believable world, living and breathing(the animation, by the way, includes not only Minkyu's work but also beautiful footage from James Baxter, Jen Hager, and Matt Williames, among others).

There's no dialogue, although there's plenty of sound-wind, rustling grass and trees, the shudder of various animals pounding through the forest or swimming through deep water. Dog wanders alone through Eden, acting in an immediately recognizable doggy manner: marking gigantic trees, play-hunting through tall grass, running and barking for the sheer fun of it-and none of this is played cute-at least, not by my lights; it's real and genuine. Dog's animation has no self-conscious posing, but neither is it "realistic" to the point of seeming merely copied from life. The dog goes day to day-or perhaps endless days, or an hour-alone, until he spies Adam-who sees him in almost the same moment. It's a more momentous exchange for dog than man, but eventually they become friends. The idyll of Eden can't last, however, and the dog must make a choice.

This is a micro story directed in macro fashion, made big without pretentious allusions or grandstanding. I can't remember when I've seen something done on this scale, in this form, fashioned with such wise taste apparent in every choice.  Even after repeated viewings I still tear up a bit, not because of a piece of lovely character animation-something I'm always a sucker for-but because everything that's going on-shot choice, length of shot, expression, color, perspective. movement-combines to produce that effect in me.

This is one of the things that I loved about animation when I determined to do it for a living; I mean specifically the sensitive, carefully calibrated story that is outside the mold one way or another. Or if done within a very commercial framework, manages to fire on all cylinders entertainment-wise while being a work of art at the same time, or, perhaps more realistically, having moments that satisfy on that level. This 15 minute short happens to be animated, but it employs an approach that at first viewing reminded me of Terence Malick (not surprising as it turns out, since Malick-along with Sofia Coppola, Tarkovsky and Godard-is one of many directors Lee admires), specifically the lyricism of "Days Of Heaven".

 

 And this is from a workaday visdev artist, on his own time, his own money(the budget is small by the standards of any short of this quality),with friends' help, To serve his own artistic vision. The result exhilarates, inspires and shames me in just about equal measure. I'm just very glad he made it.

 

 

I'll write a bit more with quotes from an email exchange between Minkyu and myself in another post. In the meantime, have a look at "Adam and Dog" if you can.  It's indeed an ineffable film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Bravery

Although it won't be on shelves for another seven months, last week Amazon put up the cover art and a short description for "The Art Of Brave", which I had the pleasure of authoring. It's going to be quite a beautiful book, one that I only wish could have been twice as long as its 160 pages. I'll write more about it here as publication time draws nearer.

In other Brave-related news, Brenda Chapman began using Twitter and has started a Tumblr blog. There's not much there yet as she only just began it, but it does link to a new, very good two-part interview with Brenda on the site Pixar Portal. Her thoughts on art, work and storytelling are a must-read.

The Fred Moore Expert: Tim Walker's new book and booksigning

James-also known as Tim-Walker holds one of Fred Moore's original, well-worn pencils, along with a photo of Fred advising Ollie Johnston

One of the oldest friends of the Blackwing Diaries is a gentleman I met through our mutual interest in Fred Moore.  I'd heard of him in the 1990s mentioned at Warner Bros as a guy who knew funny timing--as in Bob Clampettesque funny--so I already liked him, but it wasn't until five years ago, after reading an essay about the late, great Moore on these pages, that we met. He immediately offered to share his amazing collection of Fred's drawings, as well as many of his private photographs, with the readers of this blog.  Talk about riches...

I've known quite a few collectors in my time, some with world-class collections that have taken years and a lot of money and effort to acquire, but it's not terribly common to find one with the open-hearted generosity of Tim Walker.

Tim's an animation artist of the old school, and his puckish sketches are all the more remarkable for having been done by completely re-training himself to draw using his left hand after he began to lose the use of his dominant right hand to the Parkinson's disease.

 Parkinson's is a dread scenario for anyone in any walk of life, and for an artist using his hand and arm in his work it's particularly tough, but Tim refused to stop drawing, forcing himself to use his left hand instead.  That's pretty astonishing, and inspiring.
He's collected a sketchbook of his called "Drawings From The Left, or Parkinson's Pictures", and it's filled with his buoyantly rounded, charming drawings. Tonight from 6:30-9 he's having a signing in Studio City.  Highly recommend you drop in, hang out and chat a bit about drawing, cartoons, or maybe about some of the golden age Disney artists Tim's an expert on.  He's a very cool guy.

Chouinard Art Institute Redux: Dig This

Some time back I posted a page from a vintage Chouinard course pamphlet. Here's one of the covers:

Chouinard's class catalog, circa 1951
Those were the days at Chouinard-even their disposable, flimsy paper class lists sported designs like this. Two of these were inherited by story artist Justin Hunt via his great-uncle, a student of advertising in 1950, and last month he posted them in their entirety-along with a bit of the history attached-on his blog Buttermilk Skies.
Here's another cover:

Justin has excellent taste and a keen eye for vintage books, especially those that contain great drawing; along those lines he's posted loads of excerpts on his blog. Worth the trip.

Lee and Mary Blair's 1939 Los Angeles Home On the Market: (UPDATED)

I can think of an awful lot of people who are going to enjoy this.

The Hollywood Hills modernist home designed in 1939 by architect Harwell Hamilton Harris for Disney artists Lee and Mary Blair is for sale, listed at $725,000.
Harris worked for two of the greatest talents of the age and area, Richard Neutra and Rudolf Schindler, before starting his own firm in 1933.

The realtor's listing describes it as three levels "incorporating an entry, open plan living/dining area, bedroom, bath, and studio or 2nd bedroom and bath at the top". I think we know what the Blairs used the top floor for, and it wasn't a bedroom.

It's a wonderful space in a wonderful location, just what one would imagine for a couple like this. And it looks today much as it must have when they moved out, thanks to its current owner who obviously appreciated its value-sadly, not often the case in southern California.

Edited to add: an excerpt from Lisa Germany's book "Harwell Hamilton Harris"(2000):

Mr. and Mrs. Lee Blair were directors for the Walt Disney Studios who had been interested in a house by Harwell Harris since 1937. He had, in fact, designed a house at that time that was canceled due to an uncertainty in their work(of the five Disney clients Harwell had during these years only two would see their houses reach the construction stage). In 1939 they returned with a new lot and he started over again. This lot was extremely steep and Harris designed the tiny, one bedroom house with three stories sheathed in horizontal redwood siding. Each of the three blocks of the house rose another step up the hill. At its rear, each floor rested on the natural level of the ground and at its front it rested on the rear edge of the block below it. Thus, the second story used the roof of the first story for a roof terrace, and the third story used the roof of the second story for its roof terrace. So high, in fact, was the studio that the clients had a spectacular view of Los Angeles and even of the cowboy and indian movies being filmed at Fox Studios.
The Blair house followed all the rules of Harris' nine-point plan. The same finishes--grass matting, plywood walls and Celotex ceilings--were used thoughout, and each room had one wall of glass opening into a garden or terrace. This allowed not only for a more generous display of the floor but also showed the Alvar Aalto chairs and Harris-designed couch and dressing table to their full advantage.

A correction, and a note: the Blairs were not "directors" at Disney's in 1939. The Blairs' unbuilt property that fell through in 1937 was on Beech Knoll Road in Laurel Canyon.

Fellow Dreamworks story artist and author/illustrator Scott Santoro (who lives near the Blair's former residence and has seen the exterior) writes:
"It's the first time the house has been on the market since 1955. The lot is large, steep and rangy with a switchback stair to the front door. I'd hate to move things in and out of there, though it does have a funicular [probably what's more often called a hillevator-ed]. The garage sets into the slope and has a grass roof."

The images above are from the sale listing and are recent. Below are photographs taken both in the Blairs' time and today. The circa 1939 color photo of the living area features what looks like a watercolor by one of the couple near the fireplace. The chairs in the Blairs' living room are are by Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto











Here are some views from the street of the Blair residence garage, the "hillevator" and exterior taken on November 6, 2010 by Scott Santoro. Thanks again, Scott:

The Blackwing Returns

Some of my Blackwing pencils

NOTE Today I heard from two story artists simultaneously with exciting news via Mark Frauenfelder at boingboing.net: apparently that mighty elegant instrument, the extinct Blackwing pencil, is soon going to resume production. I wrote the post below ("Why My Blog Is Titled As It Is') in November, 2005, and it seems like a good time to give it an encore.

They don't make them like this anymore. Really--they don't make these at all; production ceased in 1998, apparently.
I love these pencils--they're a joy to draw with, although I rarely use them now (dwindling supply), but their real attraction is the association they can't shake for me--that of the Disney studio of the 50s, of sketch artists and draughstmen and designers working on immortal projects, not only at Disney feature animation but all over Los Angeles: the maitre'd at Musso's taking a reservation for four in 1933; a script supervisor working alongside Preston Sturges making notes during takes of "Sullivan's Travels"; a student at Chouinard toiling on a design project in 1961; Henry Miller, or Bob Clampett, or Clarence Darrow or Ward Kimball or Ernie Kovacs or Raymond Chandler. Who knows how many yet remain in the musty drawers of retired writers and artists all over the city, from Arcadia to Malibu?

I first saw one of these on the desk of an animator at Disney's in the early 80s, and later on the desk of Cecil B. DeMille, untouched since his death in the 60s; there were some among T. Hee's studio ephemera, given to us at CalArts after his death. I ordered an entire box from the redoubtable Cartoon Colour Company of Culver City, many years ago. Little dreaming of its eventual demise, I recklessly scrawled away, and now my Blackwings constitute barely a fistful, from stubs to pristine unsharpened.

It's a thoroughly romantic instrument: sleek and silvery, fast-moving and easy to sharpen, with a curious back end--a golden holder encasing a silver clasp cradling a removable eraser, the better to extract, flip and so extend its usefulness.

Among both pencil enthusiasts and stubborn pencil-wielding animators, it fights for prominience with the fat, round, green Blaisdell Layout, most famous as the longtime-preferred pencil of Glen Keane. I have a stub of a Blaisdell somewhere--really, a stub, barely two inches long. It's easy to see why it's so appealing, as it skates smoothly over the paper--best used as a blunt instrument with its wide smear of soft lead.
But I still swoon for Blackwings--surely the only pencil which bears its own motto--in quotes, no less--across its length: "Half the pressure, twice the speed". And it certainly seems to be so. A sorry world where such treasure is allowed to pass away. I am old enough to know it's the little things in life--particularly in an artist's life--that immeasurably enhance the day to day grind.

So, the Blackwing: I look over my shoulder and admire the gleam of the golden lettering on my desk. A glorious instrument with all the possibilities that art provides at its tip. And thus the blog moniker.

There's an excellent review of an "old" Blackwing here. Very much worth a click.

Sunday, June 20: win rare art by Fred Moore. Or Glen Keane. Or Marc Davis. Or 100 other geniuses of animation.

UPDATED 6/22 For the record: the auction raised over 70,000 to help Pres and his family defray the tremendous costs of his fight with leukemia.



This is a drawing by Fred Moore-probably a study for a presentation painting. It's one of a kind and it's beautiful-and it can be yours.
It'll be auctioned live tomorrow and even if you're many miles away, you can email the auction organizers today and arrange for an absentee bid to be placed for you. It's part of one of the most impressive auctions of great animation art in quite some time, and it's for a good cause.

UPDATED TO ADD: The L.A. Times had a nice article covering the auction here


Good cause? That's an understatement.


Patrick's painting of Pres and his wife Jeannine as Bonnie & Clyde, from Patrick's blog
I've never met Pres Romanillos, but thanks to my friend Patrick Mate I know several things about him, including these: he and his wife Jeannine have an awesome pride of cats, he's an excellent animator, and he's an awful lot of fun to take on road trips to the Comic Con. Also, anyone that Patrick draws with such affection and gusto must be quite a guy.

This is also borne out by the amazing organization of "Pres Aid", the auction tomorrow that Pres' friends and colleagues in animation have put together to help defray the costs of Pres' battle with leukemia.
There are far, far too many pieces for me to feature them all here, but clicking on the link above will take you to the blog set up to display most of them and explain more about the event.

In addition, some additional, choice art that wont be auctioned in the live event on June 20th has been listed on Ebay-I managed to win a beautiful, unsigned Marc Davis giclee of his personal watercolor work. Those listings, which are ongoing, are accessible here.

But back to June 2oth: here's a sampling of the stuff that'll wind up with a happy new home tomorrow:

Carlos Grangel studies for Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride"; Carlos' original paintings--like Nico Marlet's and many of the other current artists in the auction--is virtually never available for anyone to buy anywhere. This is an extremely rare opportunity to own one. This particular piece was exhibited in recent the MOMA show devoted to Tim Burton's career.


A limited edition print-one of only 22 made-of a personal painting by Marc Davis, signed by Marc and donated to the auction by Alice Davis. Pres and his wife were good friends of the Davis'. I want this painting. Bid against me and make me earn it

This fantastic painting of Messrs Hitchcock and Scorsese by Patrick is going to be in the auction tomorrow. He's one of the very best caricaturists I know, in addition to his visdev and animation work.

Beautiful piece of character design(of Gobber) from Nico Marlet, done for "How To Train Your Dragon". Nico's famous work is more beautiful in person than any scan can show-true of all the scans I have here. You can bid on it tomorrow.

An original pastel by the terrific illustrator-much beloved of animatio artists--the late Earl Oliver Hurst.

THE DETAILS:
Live Auction to benefit Disney and Dreamworks animator Pres Romanillos
Sunday, June 20, at the Animation Guild
1105 N. Hollywood Way (just north of Magnolia)
Burbank, CA 91505. Registration at 1pm, auction to follow at 2 til it's done (about 4pm)

From Kevin Koch's Pres-Aid site: "The building will open at noon, and we anticipate registering people at 1 pm and starting the bidding at 2 pm. We're working with our friend Howard Lowery, the expert on animation auctions, and we're deeply grateful for his participation. Absentee bidding will be available for those who cannot be in Burbank that day, and we anticipate being able to handle phone bidding on a limited basis."