Hello fellow Art Nerds! Welcome back to another video. Today I'm going to be telling you some fun
facts about Mary Blair while turning her into a cartoon anime character. Some fun facts you may
or may not know about Mary Blair is that she was born in McAlester, Oklahoma on October 21st
1911. She's best known for her unique use of colours shown in Disney movies from the 1940's
and 1950's. Her most well known work is showcased in Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan.
Mary Blair's work was mostly in the range of abstraction and steers away from naturalism,
her distinctive style consisted of mostly flat shapes. As a character and concept artist,
she relied on the use of shape language and colour theory to create simple scenes and moods.
Walt Disney loved her use of colour and storytelling in her pieces, and this made
her one of his favourite artists. Blair was an inherently gifted artist and won a scholarship to
Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles which has now been absorbed into Cal Arts. She graduated in 1933
at the height of The Great Depression. However, she still took a job as an animator for MGM,
known as Metro Goldwyn Mayer, though she was initially pursuing a career in the fine arts.
In 1940, Blair joined Walt Disney studios and worked on many projects, one project of note
was the Baby Ballet, which was never produced but was meant for a second version of Fantasia.
At the time, it was fairly rare for studios to hire female artists and animators but ever since
then, Mary Blair's work has inspired a wide range of artists, illustrators, animators, and designers.
Walt Disney connected with her childlike art style.
Roland Crump, a Disney Imagineering artist stated, "The way 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."
Mark Davis, one of Disney's animators said that Blair's work was on the same level as painter
Henri Matisse. She brought modern art to Walt in a way that no one else did; he was so excited about
her work. Another animator, Frank Thomas said that, "Mary was the first artist I knew of to
have different shades of red next to each other. You just didn't do that! But Mary made it work."
In 1941, Mary Blair joined an expedition with Disney that toured South America for three months.
She was accompanied by her husband Lee Blair, who also worked for Disney at the time.
There, her watercolours captured the spirit of the Latin countries so perfectly that she became the
art supervisor on The Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos. Since then, Mary's work has
influenced a large amount of Disney's post-war films, such as Song of the South, Make Mine Music,
Melody Time, So Dear to My Heart, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr.Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland,
and Peter Pan. She also worked on short films such as The Little House and Susie the Little Blue Coupe.
In 1953, Mary would leave Walt Disney Studios to focus on raising a family, however she found
a successful career in freelance graphic design and illustration. Her clients were diverse and it
included Nabisco, Pepsodent, and Maxwell House coffee. She also illustrated several Golden
books for Simon & Schuster. Some of those books including I Can Fly are still being printed today.
Walt Disney later approached her to assist with creating their attraction for the 1964 to 1965
New York World's Fair attraction. The ride called It's a Small World was so popular
that it was later adapted to be used in Disneyland in 1966, and Disney World in 1971.
Mary designed many murals, attractions and exhibits for the Florida and California theme parks.
One of these included the fanciful murals in the Grand Canyon Concourse at Walt Disney World's
Contemporary Resort hotel. Mary Blair passed away on July 26, 1978 in Soquel, California. Today,
some of her most popular books are still being printed, and the It's a Small World attraction
is still available to ride at multiple Disney theme parks. Her creative legacy has influenced
countless illustrators, character designers, game artists, and animators around the world.
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