Art and Flair of Mary Blair, The: An Appreciation

Rating:
Summary: Animation's One-of-a-Kind Treasure: Mary Blair
Review: .
It was rare in Disney animation that an individual artist would be allowed to develop such a personal and distinctive style. Mary Blair was that one-of-a-kind artist.

John Canemaker has captured Blair's artful whimsy in an appropriately sized text (enough giant coffee-table-sized Disney art books, already!) packed with full color illustrations, photographs, concept art, murals and finished drawings that provide a close-up perspective on this often overlooked talent.

As with all art appreciation, the closer the viewer can get to the hand of the artist, the greater our understanding of the creator and their passion for expression. Thanks for John Canemaker for providing contemporary art enthusiasts with the rare opportunity to study an artist who was gone before she could be more widely appreciated. Certainly, the time is right for Mary Blair's artistry to find a new home in the sun.

SaturdaysToys.com is proud to honor "The Art and Flair of Mary Blair: An Appreciation" with our Highest Recomendation!

Rating:
Summary: Mary in the Sky with Diamonds
Review: .
John Canemaker's 4th Disney book is dedicated to the woman that gave a unique touch of colour, styling and magic over the Disney films from mid 40s to mid 50s.

Although the text is more or less the same that appears in Canemaker's book ''Before The Animation Begins'' (a book about the lives and art of the conceptual artists of Disney, published in 1999), the Artwork is not the same!!! It is obvious that Canemaker did not find more things to write (and probably Mary Blair had a quiet and low profile life) but he did his best to come up with totaly fresh artwork from the Disney Archives and from private collections. The book is cleverly divided in chapters that marked Mary's career and the design reflects her fashionable sense of styling!

You will see many unpublished works of Blair - from her early watercolours to her a-m-a-z-i-n-g conceptual drawings for Cinderella, Alice and Peter Pan and from commercial artwork to the creation of the Small World ''universe''. There are also some wonderful photographs that the reader can admire Mary's unsualy elegant sense of dressing.

Mary Blair must be smiling ''over there'' and I guess Walt Disney too since she was his favorite female artist!

**** The reason I gave it 4 stars is ONLY because this book has not many pages.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Animation Fan
Review: A beautiful book poetically written by John Canemaker. This wonderfully designed book is a fine tribute to Mary Blair, one of the great designers in animation history. An essential book for animators, illustrators, designers and fans of animation. Let's hope that Mr. Canemaker continues to write about the animation artists who have moved and inspired countless others in the field.

Rating:
Summary: Most influential Disney artist a woman?? Yes!
Review: As a woman illustrator and designer in the entertainment industry, and having grown up with Disney, I was stunned and thrilled to learn about Mary Blair! How did this amazing talent remain so obscure? I graduated from a prestigious art/design school that was right next door to Choinard where Mary attended in Los Angeles, and I work in the same field, and none of us (fellow graduates or work collegues) had ever heard of her! What a shame! All of my life I'd floated through and wondered who it was that designed Small World. Had I known that it was this brilliant woman, it would have completely changed my perspective. Not to mention the tremendous influence she had on the entire advertising style of the day. I LOVE this book. Mary may have done a million more paintings - and I've no doubt she did - however, this book was "just right" for me. It is not overwhelming or filled with too much detail that might be uninteresting or tedious. It is a rich and thoughtful overview and introduction to this prolific and influential artist. I learned so much, and treasure it (it was my birthday request). The print and paper quality are beautiful, and it is very well designed.

My 4 year old daughter also loves to page through it regularly, and just this morning informed me that "she wanted to be an artist when she grows up - JUST LIKE MARY BLAIR!" Bravo! This book was looooong over due. I am just grateful she didn't disappear into history unrecognized.

Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT!
Review: BLAIR is always GREAT and this book has FLAIR from Author CANEMAKER!

Rating:
Summary: Terrible color reproductions of a GREAT colorist's work
Review: Having seen some of Mary Blair's original masterworks firsthand, and having been a Disney fan all of My Baby Boomer life, I was thrilled to hear that the wonderful writer and historian- animator, John Canemaker was at long last going to write "the definitive study" about the remarkable Mrs.Blair. My anticipation was instantly dashed when I opened the book, and saw the consistantly murky, greyed and even out of focus reproductions of Blair's incomparable work. For instance, a Blair bedroom set design for an unrealized Duke Ellington Broadway stage musical was changed so much by the inept color separation/printing that all of the very vibrant pinks, hot yellows and vivid lime greens were not at all in evidence, and the image is instead seen as if through a deep grey filter.. The essay also deserved MANY more illustrations of her actual work, and fewer of snapshots of persons boarding airplanes for South America, images of her fellow workers or repetitive (and even poorly scanned/ moire pattern laden) images for Pall Mall cigarettes. HER TRUE ART SEEMS TO BE MISSING HERE! Blair's great genius in her conceptual art for Disney, was being able with her incomparable understanding of COLOR and emotion to convey excitement and cinematic wonderment. This slim, somewhat repetitive and empty (BUT WELL WRITTEN!) book should be redesigned, rethought and certainly republished to emphasise the true colors of the rainbow minded Mrs.Blair. She deserves a better tribute, one that is more true to her spirit and verve.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible color reproductions of a GREAT colorist's work
Review: Having seen some of Mary Blair's original masterworks firsthand, and having been a Disney fan all of My Baby Boomer life, I was thrilled to hear that the wonderful writer and historian- animator, John Canemaker was at long last going to write "the definitive study" about the remarkable Mrs.Blair. My anticipation was instantly dashed when I opened the book, and saw the consistantly murky, greyed and even out of focus reproductions of Blair's incomparable work. For instance, a Blair bedroom set design for an unrealized Duke Ellington Broadway stage musical was changed so much by the inept color separation/printing that all of the very vibrant pinks, hot yellows and vivid lime greens were not at all in evidence, and the image is instead seen as if through a deep grey filter.. The essay also deserved MANY more illustrations of her actual work, and fewer of snapshots of persons boarding airplanes for South America, images of her fellow workers or repetitive (and even poorly scanned/ moire pattern laden) images for Pall Mall cigarettes. HER TRUE ART SEEMS TO BE MISSING HERE! Blair's great genius in her conceptual art for Disney, was being able with her incomparable understanding of COLOR and emotion to convey excitement and cinematic wonderment. This slim, somewhat repetitive and empty (BUT WELL WRITTEN!) book should be redesigned, rethought and certainly republished to emphasise the true colors of the rainbow minded Mrs.Blair. She deserves a better tribute, one that is more true to her spirit and verve.

Rating:
Summary: 2.5 stars, tops.
Review: the reviewer who states this book is a disappointment is dead on. i'm a fan of blair and eagerly awaited this book's arrival. i'm astounded at the amount of work not represented here, especially considering the price. blair was an AMAZING colorist and the poor reproductions don't do her work justice.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: This has to have been one of the most eagerly-awaited books for animation pros and fans in a long while....and although Canemaker usually does a terrific job writing and editing animation tomes, he's done a frankly poor job here. Considering that Mary Blair is justly famous for her brilliant(in more ways than one)use of color, the reproductions are not good at all. The text is not only rehashed from Canemaker's much superior "Before the Animation Begins"(which has a chapter on Blair), it's awkwardly shortened here. As a matter of fact, the book itself-text and pictures-is ridiculously slim, given the sale price, and the fact that this will probably stand as the only book about the subject.

As another reviewer mentioned, Mary Blair did much more work than is represented here, particularly her children's illustration. It's mystifying as to why the author didn't include or couldn't find many, many more worthy examples of Blair's work to include, when in any month on Ebay, one can bid on some eye-popping merchandise(scarves, for one!), magazine illustration, greeting cards-and even original work-that has no representation here. It appears he merely asked two or three collector friends he knows for permission to publish what they owned, but that's it. A real shame and a pity. Still, diehards will have to have it(as I do)on their shelves-but this artist deserved a LOT more than this lazy, slapdash volume.