Eyvind Earle, American (1916 - 2000)

Eyvind Earle was born in New York in 1916 and his family moved to Hollywood California in 1918. Earle began his prolific career at age 10 when his father, Ferdinand Earle, gave him a challenging choice: read 50 pages of a book or paint a picture every day. Earle chose both. From the time of his first solo show in France when he was 14, Earle's fame steadily began to grow.

At age 21, Earle bicycled across the country from Hollywood to New York, paying his way by painting 42 watercolors, one for each day of the trip. In 1937, he opened at the Charles Morgan Galleries, his first of many solo shows in New York. Two years later at his third consecutive showing at the gallery, the response to his work was so positive that the exhibition sold out, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased one of his paintings for its permanent collection. His earliest work was strictly realistic, but after having studied the work of a variety of masters, such as Van Gogh, Cezanne, Rockwell, Kent, and Georgia O'Keefe, Earle came into his own unique style. His oeuvre is characterized by simplicity, directness and a surety of handling.

In 1951, Earle joined Walt Disney studios as an assistant background painter. He intrigued Disney in 1952 when he created the look of “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom”, an animated short film that won an Academy Award and a Cannes Film Festival Award. Disney kept the artist busy for the rest of the decade. Earle painted the settings for such stories as Peter Pan, For Whom the Bulls Toil, Working for Peanuts, Pigs is Pigs, Paul Bunyan, and Lady and the Tramp. The artist was also responsible for the styling, background and colors for the highly acclaimed movie Sleeping Beauty, and is largely credited for giving the movie its magical, medieval look.

Earle’s career has encompassed many different fields. In addition to book illustrating, the artist also designed a number of covers for magazine publications. He also produced and created several animated commercials and specials for television. In 1998, the International Animated Film Society gave Earle its Windsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement. In the 1940s, Earle adapted his creative landscapes to Christmas cards and painted more than 800 designs that have sold more than 300 million copies through American Artist Group.

After about 15 years of creating animated art, Earle returned to painting full-time in 1966. He continued to work rigorously until the end of his life. In addition to his watercolors, oils, sculptures, drawings, and scratchboards, Earle began making limited-edition serigraphs in 1974. Earle had a completely original perception of landscape. He captured the grandeur and simplicity of the American countryside, and represented glimpses of the American scene with a direct lyric ardor. His landscapes are remarkable for their suggestion of distance, landmass, and weather mood.

Earle died on July 20, 2000, at age 84. During his lifetime he created many works that have not been publicly seen or exhibited.