Collection: Peter Ellenshaw (1913-2007) Artist Biography and Art Gallery Collection

Peter Ellenshaw (1913–2007), whose artistic career spans more than six decades, was a renowned landscape artist, motion picture art director, and Academy Award winner. Born in Great Britain in 1913, a neighbor, Walter Percy Day, O.B.E., a famous matte artist of his time, discovered Peter Ellenshaw’s talent and took him on as an assistant. In 1947, his work caught the attention of an art director for Walt Disney Studios. Disney was in the pre-planning stages of his very first live-action film, Treasure Island, which would be produced in Great Britain. Thus began a professional collaboration and friendship with Walt Disney that would span over 30 years and 34 films. In 1953, he was brought to California to work on “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” for which Peter Ellenshaw created several matte paintings of Capt. Nemo’s secret island base of Vulcania.

Peter Ellenshaw went on to do matte paintings and other special effects for more than 30 other Disney films, including “The Absent Minded Professor,” “Pollyanna,” “Swiss Family Robinson,” “The Happiest Millionaire,” “The Love Bug” and “The Black Hole.” He also did matte paintings for Disney TV fare, such as “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier,” “Zorro” and “Texas John Slaughter.” “He’s one of the titans of visual effects in an era before people took visual special effects for granted,” film critic and historian Leonard Maltin wrote. Unlike the digital special effects of today, Maltin explained, “a matte painter literally painted on panes of glass that, when suspended properly in front of the camera or double-exposed, give a perfect illusion. “So when you see London Harbor full of tall-masted schooners in ‘Treasure Island,’ that’s an Ellenshaw painting. When Mary Poppins sails over the rooftops of London, that’s an Ellenshaw painting. And when Davy Crocket rides down the path to Washington, that’s an Ellenshaw painting.” “Peter was a Disney legend in every sense of the word and played a vital role in the creation of many of the studio’s greatest live-action films from the very beginning,” Roy E. Disney, former vice chairman of the Walt Disney Co., said in a statement. “He was a brilliant and innovative visual effects pioneer who was able to consistently please my Uncle Walt and push the boundaries of the medium to fantastic new heights.” He maintained his identity as a traditional landscape artist during his Disney years, and always found time to work on his own canvases.

One of Peter Ellenshaw's first Disney projects upon his arrival at the Disney Studio was to create a conceptual rendering of Disneyland. He went to work, painting an aerial view of the proposed park on a four-by-eight piece of fiberboard. The painting was then used by Walt Disney to help introduce television audiences to his new project, while simultaneously using the painting to attract backers on this exciting new concept in outdoor entertainment.

In 1964, Peter Ellenshaw won the Best Special Visual Effects Academy Award for the Disney Classic "Mary Poppins", and went on to receive three additional nominations over the rest of his career. After doing special effects and the production design on the 1974 Disney adventure-fantasy “The Island at the Top of the World” -- for which he shared an Oscar nomination for best art direction -- Ellenshaw and his wife moved to Ireland, where he painted landscapes for a couple of years before returning to California. From then on, he did only occasional film work, including the 1979 Disney space adventure “The Black Hole,” for which he shared an Oscar nomination for best visual effects. Ellenshaw, who also shared an Oscar nomination for art direction for the 1971 film “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” came out of retirement for the last time to do matte paintings for the 1990 film “Dick Tracy.”

Peter Ellenshaw began to broaden his Hollywood horizons at that point, working on "Superman IV" with son Harrison in 1984. The work of Peter Ellenshaw is represented in both public and private galleries worldwide. He has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including those by the American Film Institute, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Film Institute in Chicago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the R.W. Norton Art Museum in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the Disney Legends Awards. In 1993, Peter Ellenshaw was officially designated a "Disney Legend" by the Walt Disney Company during a ceremony at Walt Disney Studios.