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Fascinating article in the March 2010 issue of VANITY FAIR revealing the true story of the army of young women who inked and painted all the animation of DISNEY’s Golden Age:
COLORING THE KINGDOM
By Patricia Zohn | Vanity Fair
Behind the breakthrough magic of Walt Disney’s first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and his other 30s and 40s classics—Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi—toiled as many as 100 young women, the inkers and painters, working from dawn to dusk on thousands of cels that brought his dreams to life. The author recaptures their white-gloved esprit de corps, and a golden age of Disney that would be disrupted by strike, World War II, and, eventually, the Xerox machine.
“Snow White has to be out by Christmas—if not it’ll be too bad for Disney’s,” 20-year-old platinum blonde Reidun “Rae” Medby wrote her boyfriend from her Hollywood apartment late one night in the fall of 1937. She was barely able to keep her eyes open after a month of working weekends and double shifts in the Ink and Paint department, the all-female “finishing school” of hand-drawn animation, during the final push on the groundbreaking film. “The minute I get a pen in my hand my brain goes numb—just like it does at the studio. Don’t be upset if I start inking ducks and mice.”
The Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck color short films that had lured Rae to the jumbled Hyperion Avenue studio had grown ever more expensive—even a “mathemagician” like Walt’s brother Roy couldn’t shrink the six months of preparation, the thousands of cels (the celluloid sheets on which drawings were traced and colored before being photographed), or the two-week shoots they required. More tellingly, the films no longer reflected Walt’s ambitions for the rapidly evolving medium. Now everything was hanging on the production of the world’s first animated feature, about a pretty, ragtag princess and her seven bachelor heroes. Yet Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as Walt conceived it (and reconceived it, right up until its release), was based on the daring notion that a fairy-tale cartoon could hold an audience’s attention for more than an hour. It was proving to be a singularly labor-and-money-intensive crusade.
The end of the assembly line usually inherits all the problems. Preparing the animators’ vision for camera required the inking and painting of thousands of fragile, combustible cels with perfect refinement. During Snow White, it was not at all unusual to see the “girls”—as Walt paternalistically referred to them—thin and exhausted, collapsed on the lawn, in the ladies’ lounge, or even under their desks. “I’ll be so thankful when Snow White is finished and I can live like a human once again,” Rae wrote after she recorded 85 hours in a week. “We would work like little slaves and everybody would go to sleep wherever they were,” said inker Jeanne Lee Keil, one of two left-handers in the department who had to learn everything backward. “I saw the moon rise, sun rise, moon rise, sun rise.” Painter Grace Godino, who would go on to become Rita Hayworth’s studio double, also remembered the long days merging into nights: “When I’d take my clothes off, I’d be in the closet, and I couldn’t figure it out: am I going to sleep or am I getting up?” Click HERE to continue reading…
The Brutal Knights earn their moniker…
Miami’s punk contingent went sleepless last week while the KILL YOUR IDOLS/PUNK IS EVERYTHING installation, sponsored by CONVERSE, “with love,” shook ART BASEL. A poignant tribute to the lasting vitality of underground punk culture, the exhibition was curated by author, artist, and punk historian BRYAN RAY TURCOTTE, whose books “Fucked Up and Photocopied” and the newly-published “Punk is Dead, Punk is Everything” are virtual textbooks of punk art over the years. Classic punk flyer imagery from Turcotte’s books formed the foundation of the exhibition’s visuals (and the exhibition’s tear-away wallpaper) and was augmented by a show of original photographs by lenswoman EILEEN POLK who captured early visions of everyone from the Dead Boys and The Clash, to The Misfits and The Ramones, in her 30+ year career. Nightly entertainment in the form of live music by punk upstarts like THE BRUTAL KNIGHTS, MATT & KIM, NODZZZ, CAUSTIC CHRIST, SEX/VID, and HEX DISPENSERS, to name a few kept the crowd sweaty till morning, while old school Chuck Taylor product tosses kept everyone’s feet on the ground. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »
Julien Hoeber renders his verdict on the state of the art world…
Sculpture of all kinds, big & small, took center stage at this year’s ART BASEL with amazing offerings seemingly around every corner. The work of young LA artist JULIAN HOEBER, however, kept us coming back for more. His recent “bullet hole” series of bronze busts has us mesmerized, along with Japanese Pop Art master TAKASHI MURAKAMI who recently ponied up $15K for Hoeber’s bullet ridden self-portrait bust. Expect big things from Julian on the horizon. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »
“Art damage” might just be an understatement…
NIKE SPORTSWEAR took the hipsters to town at this year’s ART BASEL in Miami on Friday nite when their AARON ROSE-curated “Art Damage” party broke open in conjunction with the NADA art fair. Featuring visual displays drawn from the label’s “Being True” photography campaign, video portraits of NSW athletes by acclaimed artist ROBERT WILSON, and elements of their recent alliance with the “Beautiful Losers” documentary film, the party shifted into overdrive when the evening’s real entertainment kicked in courtesy of musical guests THE SADS, NO AGE, and PANDA BEAR. Needless to say, heads were rocked, sweat was poured, and art was damaged by all. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »
Art Basel saw Ryden and White at the top of their game…
Having seen an astounding array of high quality offerings at this year’s ART BASEL, we still can’t help but marvel at the insane quality of the new work put forth by Supertouch’s own resident modern old masters MARK RYDEN and ERIC WHITE. Debuting the centerpiece of his forthcoming Tokyo solo show opening in February, Ryden showed off the 7′ wide oil painting “Sophia’s Bubbles,” announcing a new, more simple style and palette in the process. Meanwhile, master of figurative detail Eric White continued his “Psychology of Interiors” series of oil paintings to great success with five amazing new dreamscapes. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »
At Art Basel, the writing was on the wall this year…
After days of tepid sales, guarded optimism, thinly veiled terror, and defiantly happening parties, ART BASEL 2008 was still a good year for, well, art. Spread over dozens of fairs were epic pieces by Barry McGee, Tomoo Gokita, Friends With You, Chiho Aoshima, Richard Prince, Mark Ryden, Barbara Kruger, Hyungkoo Lee, Josh Keyes, Robert Williams, Colin Christian, Todd James, Ron English, KAWS, Dearraindrop, Tony Oursler, Raymond Pettibon, , Eric White, Usugrow, Chris Mars, Fafi, Dash Snow, Aurel Schmidt, Scott Campbell, Phil Frost, Shepard Fairey, The Clayton Brothers, Takashi Murakami, and Kehinde Wiley, to name but a scant few, and celebrity buyers like Brad Pitt, Pharrell, Sofia Coppola, Jay-Z, and Dennis Hopper were still out shopping—though not necessarily buying—in full effect. Even Paris Hilton made her usual appearance. All in all, it was a good year to look at art, just not necessarily a great one to buy a lot of it. Following is a flashback of some of the cool stuff. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »
Guns on the streets in Miami…
Artistic comrades-in-arms and emissaries of Franco-American relations SHEPARD FAIREY & WK INTERACT were literally some of the busiest artists on the streets in Miami last week at ART BASEL. While both were represented by galleries at several fairs, the pair also managed to get extremely busy in the streets, posting up large-scale pieces throughout the Wynwood district with Shepard’s installations featuring political imagery from his recent Shooting Gallery SF show, while Frenchman WK illustrated a monochromatic futuristic-cops-and robbers scenario gone wrong. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »
Capturing Yan Pei-Ming’s Obama for posterity & Shepard Fairey’s fine art tribute to the king…
Throughout the seemingly endless sea of imagery, from good to bad, high to low, one of the most consistent themes of this year’s ART BASEL was none other than President #44-to-be, BARACK OBAMA, by a slew of artists no doubt hoping to cash in on some of the last vestiges of hope most Americans have left to cling to. Here’s a brief recap of some of the visual homages. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »
Manson debuts new girlfriend, conjures tri-faced Christ in Miami…
Casting a distinct pall over the already overcast Miami area on Thursday nite was the opening party of rocker/painter MARILYN MANSON’s “Trismegistus,” (named for the legendary Greek alchemist) his first ART BASEL solo show, presented by Germany’s GALERIE BRIGITTE SCHENK. Housed at the 101 EXHIBIT space in the design district, the show featured over 20 watercolor works by the painter spanning the past eight years of his ever-tumultuous life. Of course, the subject matter of the paintings did not disappoint, reflecting the artist’s deeply dark sense of humor, and included a transvestite Charlie Chaplin, Jon Benet Ramsey as Sleeping Beauty, portraits of the Black Dahlia, a bleeding, triple-faced Christ, and a self-portrait as an old, bald absinthe drinker. Painting titles were equally imaginative and included poetic bits like “Green Whore of Love,” “I’ve got my arm around no one,” and “The man who eats his fingers.” The show remains on display through February 2009, giving Tampa’s massive Goth population ample time to organize a massive field trip/Greyhound bus convoy to the show. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »
Friday was a big nite in the Midwest when SHEPARD FAIREY’s Ohio installment of his traveling retrospective “Supply & Demand” opened at the CINCINNATI CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER and shattered the institution’s all-time attendance record.
What has to be the final nail in the “Street Art” coffin was driven in last weekend by none other than MR. BRAINWASH (aka: “The Christian Audigier of Street Art”) when he opened his massive, self-produced “Icons” show in a rented space (which, ironically, was once a real art gallery, pre-recession) in the heart of Chelsea. As the subject of Brit Street Art king Banksy’s recent docu-parody film, “Exit Through The Gift Shop,” MBW has been the focus of much hype and speculation as his presence finally seeps into the fairly muddy stream of mainstream consciousness. Last week’s Wall Street Journal article articulated this particularly well:
One of the fashion world’s foremost visionary designers ALEXANDER McQUEEN was found dead today in his London apartment, an apparent suicide just days after the death of his mother, and the suicide of one of his close friends Isabella Blow, who discovered the young designer and helped forge his early career:
Despite MOCA’s financial woes of late and near collapse last year amid the chaos of the economic holocaust, the veritable Southland institution seems on to a bright future now, having secured ST buddy JEFFREY DEITCH as its new director (starting June 1) and financial security (for the moment). If ever there was a time to celebrate, it is now. HAVE A LOOK:
By now it’s no secret that JEFFREY DEITCH is closing shop in downtown NYC to head West for the sunnier confines of the MoCA Director’s office, starting June 1st. That leaves SHEPARD FAIREY’s upcoming portrait show as the farewell exhibition at one of the city’s most legendary and influential commercial art institutions in the city’s history.
J O'Shea/Editor
Shepard Fairey
Everlast
Dr Romanelli
Lupe Fiasco
Billy Gibbons
Christian Parkes
Davey Havok
Eric White
Erik Foss
Christian Hosoi
Josh Davis
Kenna
Mark Ryden
Masa/Three Tides
Sarah/Colette
Scott Campbell
Tim Biskup
WK Interact
Donny Miller
Lance Mountain
James Jean
Andy Cruz
Adam Glickman
Ron English
Jose Parla
D* Face
Eric Nakamura
Nathan Cabrera
Kostas Seremetis
Phil Frost
Kyle Ng
Suitman