Water to Paper, Paint to Sky

A founding member of the Los Angeles Oriental Artists Group, Tyrus Wong developed a personal artistic sensibility that joined his formal western art-school training with traditional Asian aesthetics. During the Great Depression, Tyrus participated in the WPA’s Federal Art Project and exhibited his work in a 1932 group exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute that also featured Pablo Picasso. His creativity and drive helped shape the artistic, bohemian life of Los Angeles during the 1930s. From 1942 to 1968, Tyrus worked at Warner Bros as a production illustrator, drawing set designs and storyboards for many award-winning live-action feature films, including Rebel Without a Cause, Calamity Jane, Harper, Ice Palace, Around the World in Eighty Days, and The Wild Bunch. On top of his fine art and illustration work for movies, scarves, pottery, and greeting cards, Tyrus channeled his talent into designing and hand-building elaborate multicolored kites, some more than 100 feet long, which he still regularly flies on the beaches of Santa Monica with his friends and family. In 2001, Tyrus was honored as a Disney Legend for his contributions to Bambi, and in 2006, he won an Annie Award (Association Internationale du film d’Animation) for lifelong achievement. There have been solo exhibitions of Tyrus’s work at the Chinese American Museum and the Museum of California Design.