Walt Disney’s 4 Artists Paint 1 Tree

I've been. a Robert Henri fan for a long time including his extraordinary paintings and his book The Art Spirit. My homage to Henri is a 9 hour audiobook that I recorded a few years ago and a podcast episode that focused on his childhood story. So, you can imagine the delight I felt in discovering that Walt Disney was a huge Robert Henri fan, too. He references Henri's book in this 15 minute movie: 4 Artists Paint 1 Tree.

This movie is a classic Walt Disney educational short film from 1958, produced as part of the Disneyland TV series under the segment An Adventure in Art. It’s widely loved by artists and animation fans because it offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how Disney’s top artists thought about style, interpretation, and technique.

The four legendary Disney artists featured in this movie are:

Marc Davis – Known for character animation (Bambi, Cruella de Vil, Tinker Bell). His version is more realistic and illustrative.

Eyvind Earle – Famous for the stylized backgrounds of Sleeping Beauty. His tree is highly graphic, flattened, and design-driven, with strong shapes and silhouettes.

Joshua Meador – An effects and special processes artist. His version is loose, expressive, and painterly.

Walt Peregoy – Known for modernist color and abstraction (101 Dalmatians backgrounds). His interpretation is bold, impressionistic, and less literal.

Links:

The Art Spirit by Robert Henri and Narrated by Carl Olson
The Artful Painter - Robert Henri - A Secret Identity