(Walt Disney Studios, 1948) Original concept painting by Mary Blair of an idyllic landscape from ‘The Legend of Sleep Hollow,’ the second segment from the animated package film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which depicts farmland with fences, a pair of log cabins, a winding river, and distant mountaintops. Accomplished in tempera on 9 x 8 artist’s board, which is marked in the lower right corner, “B2.” In fine condition, with pin holes to corners. From the collection of acclaimed animator Hugh Fraser, who obtained this painting directly from Blair, a friend and colleague from the Chouinard Art Institute.
Fraser (1904-1994) was a prolific animator from the Golden Age of Disney animation who worked on classic films like Bambi, Dumbo, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and many, many more. He later worked for Hanna Barbera and, in 1987, Fraser was awarded the Golden Award by the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Award. According to fellow Disney great Milt Kahl—'Hugh Fraser was a hell-of-a-animator.'
Blair (1911-1978) was a concept artist for Disney during the 1940s and early 1950s, working on designs for such films as Peter Pan, Cinderella, and Alice in Wonderland. She also created designs for several Disney attractions (including It's a Small World), and her largest work ever, the multi-story mosaic in Disney World's Contemporary Hotel concourse. An attractive and bucolic Blair painting from one of Disney’s minor classics.
