Walt Disney Family Museum
The Walt Disney Family Museum Presents Special Exhibition

Water to Paper, Pigment to Sky: The Art of Tyrus Wong

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At age 102, Wong is the oldest living Chinese-American Creative person

May 28, 2013, San Francisco, CA – From Baronial 15, 2013 to Feb 3, 2014, The Walt Disney Family Museum will present the exhibition Water to Paper, Paint to Sky: The Art of Tyrus Wong. Organized by Michal Labrie, the museum's director of collections, the exhibition will focus on the life and piece of work of Chinese-American artist Tyrus Wong-a historic painter, muralist, kite maker, lithographer, Hollywood sketch artist, calligrapher, ceramicist, and Disney Legend. At age 102, Wong is nevertheless a practicing artist today.

This retrospective features more than 150 works including paintings, sculptures, works on newspaper, painted scarves, kites, and more than. Although he never met Walt Disney, it was the ethereal dazzler of Wong'due south Eastern influenced paintings that defenseless Walt'due south eye and became the inspiration for the animated feature Bambi, which changed the mode blitheness fine art was presented, and continues to be an inspiration to contemporary artists.

Overcoming adversity, poverty, and racial discrimination, Wong used his passion and interpretation of the bold art of the Sung dynasty, and his experience working as a Depression- era muralist, California watercolorist, and motion-picture show product illustrator, to become one of the bohemian artists whose creativity and drive helped shape the cultural, artistic life of Los Angeles during the 1930s and 40s.

In 1938, Wong took a job at the Walt Disney Studios every bit an inbetweener, one who goes through the tedious process of making "in-betwixt" drawings that filled out the movement of the characters between the animators' key drawings. He recalled "At the finish of the twenty-four hours, I thought my eyes were going to pop out," as he flipped through countless drawings of Mickey Mouse and stared at the low-cal in the drawing board. When he heard that Disney's next feature-length pic was going to be Bambi, he saw an opportunity to present his piece of work.

Wong read Felix Salten's Bambi and "idea the story was very, very nice-the feeling-you could nearly smell the pine," and made sample sketches creating the lush mountain and forest settings, inspired by Sung dynasty landscape paintings. He had a different approach and one that had never been seen earlier in an blithe film. He explained, "I tried to go on it very, very elementary and create the atmosphere, the feeling of the forest." Tom Codrick, the motion-picture show's art director, was impressed with his sensitive manner, which was vastly different from the more ornate style of Disney'southward Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which preceded it. Tyrus's Chinese-inspired sketches and paintings ready the look and tone for Bambi, and were some of the virtually strikingly beautiful art always produced at the Walt Disney Studios.

In 2001, Wong was named a Disney Legend, and his work continues to inspire and influence the leading animators of today.

The exhibition also includes paintings, hand painted ceramics and silk scarves, original greeting cards, works on paper, and his latest piece of work including handmade and hand-painted kites, which range in size from six inches to 100 anxiety.

About Tyrus Wong

Wong was built-in in Canton (now Guangzhou), Communist china in 1910. In 1919, he and his father immigrated to America leaving backside Wong's mother and sister, whom they never saw again. Arriving in the United States, they were initially held on Angel Island because of the Chinese Exclusion Act. After their release from Affections Island, they settled in Sacramento, later moving to Los Angeles's Chinatown neighborhood.

Early on Years
Wong's interest in painting and cartoon emerged at an early on age. Though they were poor, his father encouraged his talents by having him practice calligraphy by dipping his brushes in water and "painting" on newspaper. Indifferent to schoolhouse, he dropped out of Benjamin Franklin Junior High in Pasadena, CA to nourish the Otis Art Institute on a full scholarship. At that place he received formal western art training while studying the art of the Sung Dynasty at the Los Angeles Fundamental Library in his free time.

Despite graduating in the midst of the Depression, Wong led an active life as an artist. He exhibited work throughout the country, including a 1932 group exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute that featured Pablo Picasso. Wong and other young Asian artists including Hideo Date and Benji Okubo gained recognition past exhibiting equally the "Orientalists." Wong was also hired as part of the Federal Arts Project, a co-operative of the New Deal-era Works Progress Assistants (WPA). His work during this period was heavily influenced by his friend, the highly regarded modernist painter Stanton MacDonald-Wright, best known for his use of rich harmonious colors (a way referred to every bit "synchrony") and his integration of Chinese compositions.

The Dragon's Den

Though he exhibited regularly, Wong and his fellow artists struggled to survive. Their answer was the Dragon's Den, a subterranean, trendy, Chinatown restaurant that attracted Hollywood stars such as Peter Lorre, Anna Mae Wong, and Sydney Greenstreet. It stood out amid the chop suey joints of Chinatown and was the brainchild of close friend Richard See. It boasted wall to wall to murals and paw painted menus by Wong and his boyfriend artists. Information technology was there that he met Ruth Kim, his future married woman.

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Walt Disney Studios

In 1938, following his marriage and birth of his outset daughter, Wong said he "needed a task." Information technology was at that fourth dimension he began at Disney as an "inbetweener," drawing hundreds of sketches of Mickey Mouse. He found the work boring and numbing. When he heard that the studio was in pre-production on the characteristic film Bambi, he went home and painted several pictures of a deer in a forest. These minor, but evocative sketches captured the attention of Walt Disney and became the basis for the pic's visual style.


Warner Brothers

From Disney, Wong headed to nearby Warner Brothers, where he switched from fantasy to realism. He was hired every bit a production illustrator and sketch creative person where he painted and sketched concept art for hundreds of live-activeness films, including Rebel Without A Cause, Calamity Jane, Harper, The Wild Bunch, Sands of Iwo Jima, Auntie Mame, Apr in Paris, and PT 109. He was often loaned out to Republic Pictures where he worked on many John Wayne westerns, a genre that would become a favorite of his. He stayed at Warner Bros. for the next 26 years until his retirement in 1968.

Throughout his years at the studio, Wong continued to paint and exhibit his fine fine art. In 1954, he was featured in a short pic produced by Eliot O'Hara demonstrating Oriental brushwork techniques. His commercial piece of work included designing greeting cards for over twenty years, illustrating magazine covers and children'southward books, and painting calligraphic fashion designs on Winfield ceramic ware that sold in high-terminate section stores.

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Kite Building

After retiring, he turned his attending to designing and building hand-made kites. His dozens of designs include multi-colored 100-foot centipedes, flocks of consume, butterflies, and panda bears. In 1990, he and his kites were featured in the brusque moving-picture show, Flights of Fancy. To this solar day, Wong flies his kites every month in Santa Monica.

Water to Paper, Paint to Sky: The Art of Tyrus Wong is organized by The Walt Disney Family Museum.

FREE Special Program
On Saturday, August 17 from 11am to 5pm, The Walt Disney Family Museum and the Presidio Trust volition host a Costless Family Kite Day Festival on the Presidio's Main Post Lawn to celebrate the opening of the exhibition Water to Paper, Paint to Heaven: The Art of Tyrus Wong. Spotter spectacular kites flown loftier higher up the Presidio-from acrobatic kites of world champions to the hand-made entries of amateurs.

Enjoy food, games, and fun for the entire family unit including contests, kite making, and kite flight demonstrations, an antique ladder-climbing demonstration past the San Francisco Burn down Department and much more than. Gratuitous kites for kids will be bachelor at the Brand-a-Kite Pavilion then everyone will have a chance to soar!

Most THE MUSEUM
The Walt Disney Family Museum presents the fascinating story and achievements of Walt Disney, the man who raised animation to an art, transformed the flick manufacture, tirelessly pursued innovation, and created a global and distinctively American legacy. Opened in October 2009, the 40,000 foursquare foot facility features the newest engineering and historic materials and artifacts to bring Disney's achievements to life, with interactive galleries that include early drawings and animation, movies, music, listening stations, a spectacular model of Disneyland and much more.