they drew as they pleased: the hidden art of disney’s golden age: the 1930s (excerpt)
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T H E Y D R E W A S T H E Y P
THE hidden ART of DISNEYTH E 1 9 30 S
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T H EY D R EW A S T H EY PL EA SED130
Like Albert Hurter and Ferdinand Horvath, Gustaf
Tenggren cam e from Europe. Like Horvath (and, to a much
lesser extent, Hurter) he had worked on book illustrations before
joining Disney. But while the styles of Hurter and Horvath were
definitely “cartoony,” Tenggren was inspired by the formal beauty
of some of the best Victorian-era children’s illustrators, such as
Arthur Rackham a nd John Bauer. And, unlike Hurter and Hor-
vath, Tenggren was already quite famous when he joined Walt’s
studio on April 9, 1936.
TH E A RTH U R RA C K H A M O F S W E DE N
“I was born [on November 3, 1896] in Magra Socken [Swe-
den], in the home of my paternal grandparents,” recalled Gustaf
in the autobiography he wrote for the book More Junior Authors :My family lived in G othenburg, Sweden, where I attended
school with my brother and four sisters. Summers were happily
spent in the country, tagging along with my grandfather, who
was a woodcarver and painter, and also a fine companion for a
small boy. I never tired of watching him car ve or mix the colors
he used when commissioned to decorate, with typical primi-
tive designs, churches and public buildings in the community.
Aware of my keen interest in drawin g, a kind and under-
standing teacher, Anton Kellner, provided stuffed animals
and other interesting subjects from which to draw and paint.
When I was thirteen I passed a scholarship test in art and
enrolled in evening classes. The following year I received a
three-year scholarship and became a full-fledged art studentattending day classes. This was the same school [the school
for arts and crafts in Gothenburg] from which my father, also
an artist, had graduated.
OPPOSITE TOP: Gustaf Tengg
during aeld trip togatherinspiCourtesy:S wensonSwedish ImmCenter.
OPPOSITE BOTTOM: Gustaf Tat layout drawingsat the DisneySwensonSwedish ImmigrationR
RIGHT: Photoof Gustaf TenggSchultheistaken during aJune 1
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T H EY D R EW A S T H EY PL EA SED152
OPPOSITE AND ABOVE: SnowSeven Dwarfs (1937).Courtesyof AnimationGallery.
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T H EY D R EW A S T H EY PL EA SED176
WALT’S FRIEND
“I was born in Rome, Italy, on September 13, 1900,”
explained Bianca in a letter to animation historian John Cane-
maker. “My Italian name was Bianca Maggioli and my French
teacher Josephine Mack at McKinley changed it to Blanche
Majolie. It was Walt who later changed my name to Bianca. “Walt Disney was a lower classmate of mine at McKinley
High School in Chicago in 1917. I did not know him or his
friends personally and saw him only once on the day he came
back to school dressed in his G.I. uniform [at the end of World
War I] to say goodbye. I was graduating at mid-term, handed him
my girl grad-book, and he drew pictures in it.”105
Seventeen years after high school, Bianca was working in
New York as art director and brochure designer for the J. C. Pen-
ney Company. She had studied composition, anatomy, and paint-
ing at the Art Institute of Chicago, drawing at the Leonardo da
Vinci School of Art in New York, and clay sculpture at the Art
Students League in New York. In 1929 she had worked as a free-
lance artist for Earnshaw Publications, tackling fashion assign-
ments, which took her to Rome, Florence, and Paris.106
On April 1, 1934, after five years with J. C. Penney, she
decided to send a fateful letter to the man she still remembered
as a teenager:Dear Walt Disney,
It cannot be seventeen years ago, and yet it is, since the
days of McKinley High School. It seems to me that some-
where I’ve a gi rl grad-book full of little thin gs you drew!
And it seems to me that you were a rather sweet, fair haired
lad of fourteen, quite eager to do nice things for people.
On February 23, 1940, just two weeks after the opening ofPinocchio, the following appeared in the Hollywood Citizen News :
“It is no longer news when a woman takes her place in a
man’s work-a-day world. But it was news when a woman art-
ist invaded the strictly masculine stronghold of the Walt Disney
Studio.
“The event took place about [five] years ago. Until that time
the only girls in the Studio were the few necessary secretaries and
the girls who did the inking and painting of celluloids. The girl
who caused all the excitement was a young artist who, as a child,
had gone to school with Walt in Chicago.”104
Bianca Majolie was indeed the first woman to join Disney’s
Story Department. Paving the way for others was a rough under-taking, but she would soon be followed by a handful of similarly
remarkable women.
BiancaMajolie in1938, climbing Mount SanJacintonearPalm Springs.Courtesy:JohnCanemaker.
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T H EY D R EW A S T H EY PL EA SED196
ABOVE AND O PPOSITE: Concthe “Dance of the SugarPlum F“NutcrackerSuite”inFantasia.
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