Happy 100th, Tyrus Wong!
Brew reader Alex Rannie reminds us that Monday, October 25, marked the centennial birthday of animation legend Tyrus Wong and we hope you’ll join us in wishing him a very happy birthday. The Chinese-born artist worked at Disney between 1938 and 1941 where he famously art directed Bambi, though his contribution was never properly acknowledged and he was only credited as a background painter.
In spite of his contributions to the classic Disney feature, Wong considers animation to be “a minor, very small part” of his artistic life, that also included twenty-six years as a film production illustrator at Warner Bros. where he worked on films like Rebel Without a Cause, Around the World in Eighty Days and The Wild Bunch. He also worked for many years as a greeting card designer.
Below is a 2007 interview with Wong about his early artistic career:
More links about Ty Wong:
Five-part video series about his life on PBS
Appreciation of Wong’s work on Bambi by Hans Bacher
A bio and incredible examples of his art from an exhibition catalog
