Art Wednesday: Mary Blair

Artist: Mary Blair
October 21, 1911 - July 26, 1978
Born in the USA

Mary Blair was born Mary Robinson, was an American artist best remembered for work done for The Walt Disney Company between 1943 and 1953. Blair produced striking concept art for such films as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Song of the South and Cinderella. Mary resigned from Disney to become a freelance graphic artist, working on a number of projects for companies like Nabisco and Maxwell House.  She attended San Jose State College and won a scholarship to the renowned Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. In 1934 she married another artist, Lee Everett Blair.

Though much of her art veers away from naturalism toward abstraction, she was one of Walt Disney’s favorite artists; he personally responded to her use of color, naïve graphics, and the storytelling aspect in her pictures, especially the underlying emotions palpable in much of her art.  Her work is fun, witty and colourful - you can't help but enjoy it.   However, on a more serious note, Mary experimented with watercolours and in the 1930’s was a member of the prestigious California Watercolor Society - a few of her watercolours are at the end of these paintings.

 
 From Alice in Wonderland
 
  

Backyards
Southern California
End of the day

Comments

  1. Wonderful! Thoroughly enjoyed this post! Sometimes we try to copy other artists...think I will try my hand at the girl in the swing.

    Have a good day!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mrs Santos - my favourite was the first one with all thosesinging birds. I just love the colour and happiness of the painting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really like the look and feel of both the cartoons and watercolour. The Disney ones have a very familiar feel to them. I guess it is the era we grew up in.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The second picture was my favourite! Seen it before, and it is so cute!1
    love,
    Bets

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment