they drew as they pleased: the hidden art of disney’s golden age: the 1930s (excerpt)

8/20/2019 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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OPPOSITE AND ABOVE: SnowSeven Dwarfs (1937).Courtesyof AnimationGallery.


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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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ABOVE AND O PPOSITE: Concthe “Dance of the SugarPlum F“NutcrackerSuite”inFantasia.

they drew as they pleased: the hidden art of disney’s golden age: the 1930s (excerpt)

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