Illustrating the Holidays: A Disney Connection
In the 1930s and especially after the Second World War, American greeting card companies began hiring well-known artists and illustrators to design Christmas cards. Artist-designed cards enticed customers to purchase a company's cards, sometimes sold at a slightly higher price. For the artists, creating holiday cards expanded their artistic expression and provided an avenue for greater name recognition. Designing Christmas cards also supplemented incomes for artists and illustrators when other work became unpredictable. A ready pool of artists found success as production designers, animators, and illustrators in the West Coast film and movie industry — notably at Walt Disney Studios. Along with this studio talent, Walt Disney hired other well-established artists to work on his animation projects. Not only did these artists create classic animated films, but they also designed memorable holiday greeting cards.
Christmas card, 1945. Procession of Children with Candles — "Los Posadas." Artwork by Mary Blair from the Walt Disney Film The Three Caballeros. / THF715961
Mary Browne Robinson [later Mary Blair] (1911-1978) was born in McAlester, Oklahoma. Her family moved to California in the early 1920s, and she attended San Jose State College, where she majored in fine art. A gifted and talented young artist, Blair received a scholarship to the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1931, where she aspired to be an illustrator. During the 1930s, she became one of the few women members of the California Water Color Society and exhibited her works throughout the country. She married fellow artist Lee Blair in 1934. As the Great Depression lingered, both turned to Southern California's animation industry to augment their incomes, working for Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and, most notably, Walt Disney.
Mary Blair went to work for Walt Disney in 1940, following her husband Lee, who had joined the studio a few years earlier. At Disney, Blair created watercolor concept art for new films but was not happy working in animation — she had the artistic ambition of working in commercial illustration. Blair left the company in 1941, only to be rehired to accompany her husband on a research trip Walt Disney planned to Latin America for a Good Neighbor policy tour sponsored by the United States. She flourished on the tour, and Walt took notice of her work. Over the next twelve years, Blair would research and create concept artwork for numerous Disney projects, including The Three Caballeros (1944), Make Mine Music (1946), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953). Blair left the company again in the mid-1950s and returned to the work she loved — illustration and advertising design. Her diverse accomplishments encompassed clothing and textile design, children's book illustrations, commercial advertisement and greeting card design, high-end department store window displays, and Broadway and Hollywood film industry projects. Disney never forgot Blair, eventually hiring her to create special project murals and designing "It's a Small World" — a ride experience for the 1964 World's Fair, which later was moved to Disneyland.
Christmas card, 1952. "Christmas Carrousel." Artwork by Richmond "Dick" Kelsey. / THF702987
Dick Kelsey
Richmond "Dick" Kelsey (1905-1987) was born in San Diego, California, and studied art at the Otis Art Institute and the Art Center School in Los Angeles. Kelsey, a noted watercolorist in the 1930s, had works exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute and the 1935 California-Pacific International Exposition in San Diego. He was a member of the American Watercolor Society and California Watercolor Society.
In 1938, Kelsey began working for Walt Disney Studios on several of their animated films: Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi. As one of the art directors for Disney, Kelsey worked closely with the directors, helping to establish the mood, staging, and color of the animated production. He left to serve in World War II but returned after the war and worked on other Disney projects, as a writer for Alice in Wonderland and as a background artist for Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Among his other works, Kelsey assisted in the design of Disneyland, illustrated children's books based on Disney characters and stories, and designed holiday greeting cards. Kelsey, a mentor to other Disney artists, encouraged others to pursue Christmas card design. One artist was Tyrus Wong, whose atmospheric backgrounds for Bambi captured the spirit of the forest that inspired the film's visual style — a style later translated into Christmas cards.
Christmas card, 1955. "Christmas Herald." Artwork by Ralph Hulett. / THF703002
Ralph Hulett
Ralph Hulett (1915-1974) attended high school in Glendale, California, after his family had moved from Illinois, where he was born. The artistically talented student received a four-year scholarship to Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. Like many who attended Chouinard, Hulett became a member of the California Watercolor Society, exhibiting and selling his works through local galleries. Many of his works depict scenes of California and Mexico. Hulett also was a member of the American Watercolor Society and exhibited in its annual New York City shows.
Walt Disney Studios hired Ralph Hulett to work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs while he was still attending Chouinard, which became a full-time role after his graduation. Throughout his lifelong career at Disney, Hulett created backgrounds for several of the Studio's famous animated shorts and features, including Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, and The Jungle Book. In the 1940s, Hulett began creating Christmas cards for greeting card companies — notably Designers Showcase and California Artists — turning out hundreds of holiday designs over the next thirty years.
Eyvind Earle
Christmas card, 1955. "Mailbox in the Snow." Artwork by Eyvind Earle. / THF703008
Eyvind Earle (1916-2000) began working for Walt Disney Studios in the early 1950s as an assistant background painter, designing static backdrops for animated films. His first project was Peter Pan, and he later created some concept art for other films, including Lady and the Tramp. But Earle's lasting impact came when Walt Disney tapped him for the overall production design for Sleeping Beauty, including its styling, background, and color. The film's backgrounds were lush, detailed, and enchanting — a departure from previous Disney projects — and are now a highly acclaimed animation achievement.
Christmas card, 1942. An early card design by Eyvind Earle for Earle and Ball, Inc. / THF702955
Earle, however, was a recognized artist and Christmas card designer well before he went to work for Walt Disney — and remained so after he left the company in the 1960s. When Earle was ten, his father challenged him to read fifty pages of a book or create a painting a day; Earle did both. His artistic skill developed, and by fourteen, Earle had his first one-artist show. During the Depression, at twenty-one, he biked and painted his way across the United States. In 1939, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased one of his works for its permanent collection. It was also in the late 1930s, during the lingering Depression, that Earle began creating artwork for holiday cards. Earle and his mother printed the cards by hand for the first year. Over the next few years, he teamed up with friends and formed companies to sell his holiday design products — first Monroe and Earle, then Earle and Ball. His design relationship with the later company lasted until he was drafted into the Navy in 1943. By then, producing Christmas cards had become a passion — Earle would create more than 800 designs over the rest of his life.
Andy Stupperich is an associate curator at The Henry Ford.
