Disney Legends

FIVE THINGS ABOUT DISNEY LEGEND MARY BLAIR

Photos:  Top Left – Mary Blair’s background painting and colour styling of the train ride to Baia sequence for The Three Caballeros.  Top Right – The very stylish Mary Blair at work. Bottom Left – With Production Assistant Larry Lansburgh and Animator Fred Moore at The Three Caballeros wrap party. *Photo originally published by Cartoon Brew. Bottom Right – Walt Disney presents Mary Blair with a doll in her likeness for It’s a Small World. *Photos courtesy of The Walt Disney Company and the estate of Mary Blair.

1.  Artistic Training  Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles

2.  A Start At Disney  After seven years with the animation unit of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Mary Blair joined the Walt Disney Studios in 1940. In 1941 Mary accompanied Walt Disney and several other studio artists on a Disney expedition that toured Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico City for three months. Her watercolours were so extraordinary in capturing the spirit and essence of South America that Walt Disney named her art supervisor on the resulting projects The Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos.

3.  Widely Recognized For  The design of the beloved classic It’s a Small World created for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. The entire attraction was purely Mary Blair in its style and concept.

4.  Disney Legacy  Creating the unique colour and styling concepts for 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. The design of exhibits, attractions and murals for Disneyland and Walt Disney World including the iconic mural in the Grand Canyon Concourse of the Contemporary Resort Hotel.

5.  Becoming A Disney Legend  Mary Blair was inducted as a Disney Legend in 1991.

* Research D23, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair by John Canemaker

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