Much of the landscapes, traditions and culture of Mexico have served as inspiration for various works of art. Such was the case Mary BlairArt Director of Disneywho embodied various postcards in the animated film of The Three Caballeros.
Blair is one of Disney’s most prominent illustrators during the mid-20th century. She created the artistic concepts of the classics such as Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Peter Pan, among others.
Due to her passionate work, she is considered one of the most important creatives of the early days of Disney.
Who was Mary Blair?
The American illustrator was born in 1911 in McAlester, Oklahoma, but at the age of seven she moved with her family to California. Since her childhood, Mary Blair demonstrated her artistic talents and vocation. For this reason, she received a scholarship to study at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles.
By accessing this institution, he was able to nurture his artistic skills at the hands of professors such as Morgan Russe, Murphy Lawrence or Pruett Carter.
Later, in the 1930s, she married the artist Lee Blair, with whom she made her way into the world of animation. She began to build her career at Iwerks Studio, which had a character quite similar to Mickey Mouse, the Frog Flip. However, this animation did not achieve the expected success.
After passing through this studio, the couple of artists joined The Walt Disney Company in the year 1940.
His time at Disney
Mary Blair continued to enhance her talent as an artist and illustrator when she joined the famous company. This was a crucial moment because Disney innovated with Technicolor in three bands, an application that gave rise to films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
At that time, they were also working on films like Bambi, Dumbo or Pinocchio. Blair’s arrival at the company was a revolution in the use of color that would mark the artistic style that continues to this day.
His first work was given in the first version of Lady and the Tramp, a parallel version to Fantasia, which was published in the late 1990s, and a collaboration on the art of Dumbo.
However, freedom marked the creative spirit of Mary Blair, which is why in 1941 she would leave the Disney studios.
By then she traveled, along with her husband and other artists, to Mexico and South America. During this period she worked with her husband on the art of different animated feature films.
To a large extent, we owe the conceptual art of “Saludos Amigos”, for which she was art supervisor, or “Los Tres Caballeros”, in which she immortalized the beauty of our country.
Feature film “The Three Caballeros”
This film is made up of a series of fragments that are linked together. They all start from the moment when Donald Duck opens a birthday present that his Latin American friends gave him.
From this moment on, the adventure that The Three Caballeros They live in Latin America. The story of some of the segments take place in Mexico, as in “Mexico: Patzcuaro, Veracruz and Acapulco“.
Also the segment of “The inns” has Mexico as its setting. It is the story of a group of Mexican children who celebrate Christmas Eve in a procession.
With the style of these animations, Mary Blair burst into animated cinema with a unique style, which marked the childhood of several generations of children who saw the film.
It is important to point out that this film was released in our country on December 21, 1944, it also received two nominations in the Oscar for Best Original Score and Best Sound.
In the years that followed, the success of the talented illustrator continued to grow. Well, in the 1950s, she inspired much of the art that we can see in “Cinderella”, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Peter Pan”.
At the end of the Peter Pan tape, Blair decided to spread her wings and dedicated herself to working as an advertising illustrator for companies such as Beatrice Foods, Maxwell House or Pepsodent.
Blair died on July 26, 1978, at the age of 66, due to a brain hemorrhage.
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