If like me you love Mary Blair's style, you probably already own John Canemaker's excellent biography The Art and Flair of Mary Blair... and find it frustratingly short. I have a feeling that John would not disagree with you.

If it is the case, you need to do everything in your power to get ahold of the catalog of the Japanese exhibition The Colors of Mary Blair. It is 300-page long and quite simply stunning. I had never seen so much Mary Blair art in one single place, including 38 concept paintings for the abandoned project Penelope, 38 from the never completed Baby Ballet, and countless from all the other projects Mary worked on. As if this weren't enough, the book also contains some art by Preston and Lee Blair to round it of, as well as a foreword by Pete Docter and an intro by John Canemaker (in Japanese and English).

Are you will wondering if you need to email Howard Lowery to pick up your copy? Then let me summarize: this book will clearly make it to my "Best 5 Disney History Books" list for 2009. In second position, just after South of the Border with Disney: Walt Disney and the Good Neighbor Program 1941-1948. This is a "must-have" if there is one.

Do not miss today:

- Chuck Jones’s Opinion of Working at Disney by Amid Amidi
- Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure’s director and producer take us to a Once-in-a-Blue-Moon experience! by Jeremie Noyer (this article would normally be considered "out of scope" for this blog but it contains a few good things about Marc Davis and Milt Kahl).

You will all know Bill Cotter as the author of the excellent The Wonderful World of Disney Television, A Complete History. By browsing on Amazon yesterday I discovered that he also co-wrote two books that will be of interest to many readers of this blog: New York World's Fair, The 1964-1965 and The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair: Creation and Legacy.

Speaking of recently released books, I should hopefully be able to review by tomorrow the catalog of the Japanese exhibition, The Colors of Mary Blair.

This just in:

[I thought you and fans of Disney artwork on your blog might be interested to learn about Suspended Animation Gallery, an online art collection produced by notable Disney animation artists, reflecting their own personal inspirations and created in their own choice of medium. The Gallery was founded by Tenny Chonin, former Director of Artist Development at Walt Disney Animation Studios, and she invites you to please check out the website, now live at SuspendedAnimationGallery.com.]

I loved what I saw on that site.

The painting above is from George Scribner, the director of Oliver & Company. Walt Stanchfield, Mike Gabriel, Lisa Keene and quite a few others are also featured. Enjoy!

Do not miss today:

- Exclusive Interview: Discussing Halloween music and Disney with The Funhouse composer John Beal (Thanks to Jim Korkis for the link)
- More Secrets of the Adventurers Club by Wade Sampson
- Walter K. to Walter D., 1960 by Michael Barrier

Admitedly neither the recently released Tim Burton by Jenny He and Ron Magliozzi, not Le Cinema d'Animation en Espagne (1942 - 1950) [Animation in Spain (1942 - 1950)] are books about Disney History. They are so close to the subject, though, that I thought quite a few of you would want to know that they exist.

The Tim Burton book, by the way, has been released to accompany the MoMA exhibition (thanks to Emmanuel Bourmalo for the heads up).

One of my only frustrations during our trip to San Francisco a few weeks ago was to know that I would miss the screening of Ted Thomas and Kuniko Ukubo's Walt & El Grupo in Madrid. I still have not seen this documentary, which is a real shame.

In the same animation festival (Animadrid) where the screening happened, another documentary was also presented about Walt, which I missed without any second thoughts: Disney a Traves del Espejo (Disney Through the Mirror) by Eduardo Soler, about the infamous (and obviously totally absurd) rumor of Walt's birth in Mojacar, Spain.

This rumor, born thanks to Franco and the Spanish magazine Primer Plano, is unfortunately still alive and, as every stupid and false rumor, is bound to survive us all. They say in French "Calumny, calumny, something will always stick." Too true for our own good.

Do any of our German readers know anything about this book by Gottfried Helnwein. Is it purely about Disney art? Does it contain a lot of non-Disney art? How long is it? Is there a lot of text?...

This just in from Jim Korkis:

[Two more Disney books I hadn't seen before: Secrets of the Mouse and Hidden Mouse, at this link.]

Do not miss today:

- Sunday Funnies by Jerry Beck

- How Walt Got His Grrove Back by Greg Ehrbar

Greg, James D. Marks, Grey Johnson (Jimmy's son) and I are trying to get Jimmy's unpublished autobiography, Inside the Whimsy Works, in shape and to release it by 2011. I will keep you updated.

Crazy week. There might not be any update until Monday.

But do miss today:

- Dining at Disney's by Michael Barrier
- The Dumbo That Never Was by Wade Sampson

Walt's People - Update

Just a few words to give you an update on the Walt's People project. The manuscript of Volume 9 was finalized two weeks ago and sent to all the participants for comments. I expect to receive the comments by the end of February, so the publication date should be around May 2010. This will be a huge, absolutely huge volume with lots of new information.

Do not miss today:

- The Evolution of Tinker Bell (thanks to Jim Korkis for the link)

I am filled with joy when I discover a great book about Disney history or a great Disney art book, so there was joy indeed when I received the new installment of The Archive Series: Animation, which was launched last year with the volume about Story.

The animation drawings that are shown in this book are marvelous and marvelously reproduced. They all showcase emblematic scenes, or emblematic animators (including a few effects animators).

In addition, the person who supervised the layout of this book is talented and displays a clear sense of humor. Check out the drawings of Tinker Bell and Mr. Smee on pages 156 and 157 and you will understand what I mean.

The choice of the drawings is not only spot-on, it is often very clever. I had never noticed some of the parrallels between some attitudes on Ben Ali Gator and some of Chernabog, for example, that are subtly highlighted in the book. I loved seeing on the same page Donald in the 1934 and the 1941 versions of Orphan's Benefit (Dick Lundy / Johnny Cannon). And the beauty of each of Milt Kahl's drawings, and the joy in John Sibley's animation,...


Another great news: the only mistake of the volume about Story has been corrected in the Animation volume: the captions are now where they belong instead of at the end of the book.


Unfortunately it is one of the captions that proves to be the only error in the book through an unfortunate typo which credits Clyde Geronimi as an animator on a Three Caballeros sequence that should have been attributed to Ward Kimball. As we all know, unfortunately, typos survive even in the best edited books so we will be quick to forget it.

In summary: This book is a "must-have" and one of the best art books of the year (very, very, very little text). A great gift for yourself or for a friend this Christmas. Not to be missed.

Emmanuel Bourmalo just sent me a link to the offical page of the upcoming New Orleans exhibition Dreams Come True: Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio. A catalog is available at this link.

This will clearly be The book of 2010. Can't wait.

One of the three books I received from Disney Editions a few days ago is called The Art of the Disney Princess. The idea of this book is similar to what was done in The Art of Mickey Mouse and The Art of Winnie the Pooh: Disney Artists Celebrate the Silly Old Bear. To be honnest, I always found those books slightly pointless. But there is always something in them both to surprise and to inspire.

The Art of the Disney Princess is a case in point. Unlike the two other books I just mentioned, most of the artists in this one are unknown (or to be more precise: I had no idea who they are) and you really wonder what all the drawings have in common, save for the Princess theme. There is also a sense that the sources of inspiration or the creative methods of each of the artists should be explained on a more consistent basis (why are some of the artists quoted and not others?) If that had been the case one would hold a book that would be as much about the creative process as about totally subjective renderings of a common theme, adding strenght and a point to the overall endeavour. But that is not the case, which makes one wonder time and time again: what's the point?

But then the book surprised me as I did find quite a few pages that I liked very much. 13 creations (in a this 172-page book) did strike me as particularly noteworthy:

- Chad Sommers' cover drawing, which reminds me a bit or Archimboldo, although Sommers mentioned that he was inspired by Dali
- Pedro Armadillo's version of Aurora as a Gibson girl
- The two '60s like movie posters by Eric Tan featuring Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid
- The six paintings of the princesses in an Art Nouveau, Mucha-like style: one by Dorota Kotarba-Mendez and five by Enrique Pita & Ed Irizarvy
- Belle by Maria Elena Naggi in the style of Francois Boucher's Portrait of Madame de Pompadour (I wonder what that comparison says about Belle!!)
- Snow White by Robert Farrell in the style of one of Marc Davis' paintings from the stretching room in The Haunted Mansion (by far, my favorite).

As you see, all the creations I preferred are caricatures. They are the ones which have real meaning to me and I wish a whole book of creative caricatures of famous paintings were done using Disney characters. Italian Disney artists did this in the past and the results were featured in the brillant little book released in Italy in 2001 called The Magic Gallery.

In summary: Although I feel as if I missed the point of this book I did enjoy much of it nonetheless, which did come as a surprise. If you are looking for a non-Disney-history related book that shows Disney to your friends from a different perspective, this might not be a bad one to pick-up.

If you are looking for a GREAT Disney history related book, however, wait until you read the review I will post on Monday.

Actually, now that I think of it, there was something Disney-related linked to my visit to Yosemite. I found this postcard in the small city of Mariposa, right at the entrance of the park. Am I the only one seeing some similarities with part of an attraction originally planned for Disney's Mineral King Ski Resort and now featured in two Disney parks?

Do not miss today:

- Walt the Yalie by Michael Barrier
- Anniversary of the genesis of a creative empire by David Lesjak

I have just received three new books from Disney Editions that I will review within the next few days. One surprised me and one is almost perfect save for a very disturbing "typo". Let's start however, with a book that did not surprise me but that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Peter Pan, illustrated by Mary Blair, follows the pattern of the Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland books from the same series. If you have those already you can easily imagine what the Peter Pan book is: a great series of 29 concept paitings by Mary Blair illustrating a short text re-telling the famous story. I really enjoy this short series, which is oddly similar to the "Disney Archives" book series from the early '90s, which featured "The Emperor's Nightingale" and "Tin Soldier".

The only unfortunate news is that Peter Pan is confirmed as being the last installment in the series. A real shame as I would really have loved to see a lot more of those short books illustrated by various legends of the Story Department. Oh well, I always want more anyway. So for now let's just enjoy this beautiful little book.