Lines and Colors art blog

Eyvind Earle
I first wrote about illustrator, animation art director and painter Eyvind Earle back in 2006.

Since 2007, I’ve been waiting for a new site promised to be “Coming soon April 2008” at eyvindearle.com to materialize; but as the promise is unchanged as we approach April of 2009, that looks unlikely.

Fortunately, in the meantime, some additional Eyvind Earle art resources have appeared on the web.

The best is still Gallery 21, who I believe are the official representatives of his work. There are galleries of Originals and Serigraphs, as well as Books, Videos and a Chronology of Earle’s career.

There are now other galleries and unofficial sites, and I’ve listed some resources below.

Earle was noted in particular for his stunning design work on Disney’s 1959 feature, Sleeping Beauty, as well as major contributions to Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp and a number of shorts. (See this 2006 article about Eyvind Earle and Sleeping Beauty on Cartoon Modern.)

He was awarded the Winsor McCay Award (named after pioneering animator, illustrator and cartoonist Winsor McCay) for lifetime achievement in animation at the 1998 Annie Awards.

Some of Earle’s artworks were among the 250 pieces of original animation art recently returned to Disney after being misplaced in storage following an exhibit in Japan five years ago.

There are books of his work, as well as an autobiography, Horizon Bound on a Bicycle.

Earle was a dazing designer and painter. In addition to his beautiful work for Disney, he painted strikingly graphic and graceful landscape paintings, with compositions that blend the lively draftsmanship of mid-20th Century animation design and the elegant compositional influence of Japanese woodblock prints (images above, and middle, with detail at bottom).

His handling of color is just as amazing as his compositions, taking chances on color combinations and juxtapositions that would simply not work in lesser hands.


Comments

5 responses to “Eyvind Earle (update)”

  1. It may well be off-topic and would be unfair to assert any direct influence in any event (although a good case could be made I suspect), but that first image by Earle of the wave brought to mind the famous Hokusai print from the Mount Fuji series. It sold recently (hence it was on my mind) for more than a few pennies over the estimate.

    1. Thanks, peacay.

      I agree, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet.

      For other readers, the print to which peacay refers is Katsushika Hokusaiâ’s In the Hollow of a Wave off the Coast at Kanagwa, commonly thought of in the West as “The Wave”. See my post about Hokusai, and this image in particular.

      I’ll also take the opportunity to again recommend peacay’s absolutely wonderful time-sink,… er, I mean blog, BibliOdyssey. (See my previous posts about BibliOdyssey, both the book and the blog.)

  2. Many thanks for this comprehensive post on Eyvind Earl. Indeed wonderful, thanks for sharing.

  3. Thank you for the visual introduction. Amazing work. I love your site, you always find wonderful artists and give such detailed bios.

  4. I love Earle! There have just been two exhibitions with some of his artwork for Sleeping Beauty in Munich and seeing it in person is great.