Tyrus Wong, Disney Legend, is much more than a “Background Artist."

Before that story, here’s what you should also know this week

• Disney’s Hulu + Live TV will be merging with sports service Fubo, which clears the lawsuit and the way for Disney/Fox/Warner Bros. to start their own new sports streaming service called Venu.

Tyrus Wong stepped into his spotlight.

Tyrus Wong worked as a concept artist for Walt Disney and his then-growing animation studio when Walt began seeing and then admiring his work as a “background artist,” a technical term in animation that had artists focus on the background or settings that the animated characters would act ‘in’.

Even though Walt told many of his other background artists to emulate Tyrus’ art style for the film they were working on, “Bambi,” Wong ended up only working with Disney for three years.

“And that’s where the real stories of Tyrus begin,” said Karen Fang.

As a film scholar and cultural critic, Fang’s fascination with Wong in 2018, after his passing and after the release of a documentary by Pamela Tom was released in 2015. “Like many in those proceeding years, I found my connections with him as a fellow Asian American and someone who admires art” Fang said.

In her book “Background Artist,” Fang tells the wider and deeper story of Wong as an Asian who expressed life through his art. “Disney was a jumping-off point for him as he continued to do art that was rooted in his Chinese ethnicity and his life experience as an American,” Fang shared.

Born in 1910, Wong’s first experience in America was shrouded by the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese immigrants from entering the country. He was only 9, but through forged papers and along the steadfast care of his father, Wong and his father eventually found their way to Los Angeles, California.

Wong had a creative spirit to him from his youth, having blended his love for drawing and painting with the Chinese styles of those creative expressions. From there, he got a scholarship to attend Otis Art School that plucked him out of poverty in Chinatown and introduced him to white establishment culture. That culture in Los Angeles provided him an opportunity after graduation to sell his own fine art to wealthy people, while still having a solid connection to his Chinese roots.

Fang said that this creative and lived duality opened so many doors for him, including Walt Disney, who “valued what people brought to the table and not who was bringing things to it.” Still, Wong was given a remedial task alongside his white animator leaders until he decided to take a creative risk and developed concept art boards for the film that were more naturalistic to reflect the world of Bambi. 

“He essentially sneaked in a Chinese painting style that focused on smooth brushwork into these background boards that he believed were more fitting for the animated animals,” said Fang, who added that in a way he brought something uniquely himself in a creative environment that didn’t necessarily accept his unique self as a Chinese artist.

It was this posture of knowing his creative ability and not settling for creative inferiority that only opened more doors and opportunities for Wong for the rest of his life, even until his passing at 106 years old in 2016.

Fang added, “So he’s much more than a background concept artist. [Tyrus] showed us that art could be a way to empathy and community building; that creativity and artistry can be a way to persevere and be rewarded.”

You can read the full story on Tyrus Wong in Karen Fang’s book, “Background Artist,” which is available wherever you get your books.

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