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Last year for Women’s History Month I introduced the women of the Pen and Ink Department in the Golden Era of Walt Disney Animation. Today, on the 100th anniversary of Women’s History Day, his year I want to take a look at a woman who stands out in the following generation of Disney work in the 1940s.
One of the most notable of these female Disney animation trailblazers is Mary Blair. Inducted into the Disney Legends Hall in 1991, Mary Blair revolutionized the artistry of the Disney Company. Her biography on the Legends website has the scoop on Mary Blair’s contributions to animation and more.
A talented artist with few opportunities in her native Oklahoma, Mary Blair won a scholarship to attend the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. After she graduated in 1933 she didn’t do what you may be assuming: join up with the Walt Disney Company either as an Ink and Paint girl or as anything else.
Instead Blair took a job at MGM Studios, where she could actually work in the animation department. It wasn’t her dream of a fine arts career, but that was a very difficult path for women in her time. At least at MGM Blair could work in actual animation.
Ten years later Blair was hired at Disney. After just one year at the company she was tapped to join the Disney expedition to South America. Walt sent some of his animators and other staff there to learn more about its art and culture to research themed movies commissioned by the State Department.
The watercolors Blair painted while in South America expressed such a Latin style that she was then appointed the art supervisor for “The Three Caballeros” and “Saludos Amigos.” It hadn’t taken long for Walt and other execs at Disney to recognize Blair’s unique talent.
What made Blair’s work at the company so progressive wasn’t just that she was one of the first women in the animation department, but that she introduced a much more modern style of art to Walt. Disney animator Marc Davis compared Blair’s work to that of Matisse and said that, “she brought modern art to Walt in a way that no one else did. He was so excited about her work.”
I’ll let other Disney animator Frank Thomas speak for himself on the ways that Blair brought a newer style to the company. “Mary was the first artist I knew of to have different shades of red next to each other,” he said. “You just didn’t do that! But Mary made it work.”
In addition to her experiments with color, Blair brought a more simplistic, childlike style to the field of animation. That was something with which Walt could definitely connect. That led him to let Blair to branch out beyond the movie division of the company and complete some design work on the amusement parks he was planning. The “It’s A Small World” ride is Blair’s all over, both in style and concept.
Other projects Blair completed at the company includes the murals in the Grand Canyon Concourse at the Contemporary Hotel in Disney World, and significant animation work on movies like “Cinderella,” “Peter Pan,” and “Alice in Wonderland.”
Blair’s style really was perfect for the Disney Company. Imagineer Ronald Crump says of Blair that she “painted – in a lot of ways she was still a little girl. Walt was like that… You could see he could relate to children – she was the same way.” And at Disney, that’s a great strength that created a lasting legacy.
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(*This image by hyku is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
