Recently I bought a painting by Oscar-winning Columbus native Josh Meador. I also came across an article on Meador’s desert paintings for Walt Disney. A couple of years ago, the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco had a display of paintings by Disney’s “artist friends.” The introduction to the exhibit read: “Walt Disney loved artists and counted them among his best friends.”
Among the seven artist featured were Meador and Normal Rockwell. The exhibit summarized Meador’s career at Disney by saying he “put the stardust in Tinkerbell’s magic and the iconic ‘Z’ in television’s Zorro.” His film work for Disney was described as ranging from “one of the art directors for Fantasia and one of the team given the Oscar for special effects in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”
An article was posted by Karl Edwards on the California arts website titled “Joshua Meador and Walt Disney’s Desert Artists.” One of the perks for artists who were friends of Disney was to be invited to his Smoke Tree Ranch near Palm Springs. There they would paint desert scenes. Disney’s daughter Diane Disney Miller recalled her father sending Meador to the ranch to paint plein air desert landscapes either for his home or as studies for films.
Disney and his family had more than 50 of Meador’s paintings. A painting of the Smoke Tree Ranch by Meador hung in Disney’s office facing his desk. The painting shows up in the recent movie “Saving Mr. Banks.” Another painting of the ranch hung in one of Disney’s homes. After Walt Disney’s death, that painting was given to Mrs. Meador, and the Meador family gave the painting To Columbus. It now hangs in the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau office.
In 1953, Disney produced the Oscar-winning, ground-breaking documentary “The Living Desert.” That documentary was said to have inspired the modern nature documentary and was, itself, inspired by the desert surrounding the Smoke Tree Ranch. Meador was listed in the credits for animation effects. A number of Meador’s paintings at the ranch were done in the early 1950s and may have been studies done for he documentary.
In 1959, a film actress of the 1940s and 50s, Countess Elektra Rozanska, encountered Meador while he was painting. She published an interview with him in which he expressed his view that “artists can gain much, particularly from the brilliance of color and strong design in composition.”
Known for his plein air landscapes and California coastal scenes, Meador was recognized as a master of the pallet knife. A California coastal scene was painted by Meador for the White House while Lyndon Johnson was president. That painting now hangs in Johnson’s Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.
For anyone interested in reading more about Josh Meador’s paintings, I would suggest visiting the website of the Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery in California. The gallery owners are good people, friends of the Meador family and handle the sale of paintings for the Meador estate. Their website is found at: http://www.bodegabayheritagegallery.com/
On Saturday, from 4 to 8 p.m., Lee Gibson, a Starkville/West Point artist also known for painting with a pallet knife and using brilliant colors, will have an art show to raise money to help in the fight against the medical condition of Epidermolysis bullosa, or EB. It will be held at the Ole Homestead, 302 College Street, Columbus. If interested in coming, RSVP to [email protected] or on the Facebook event Art for EB.
Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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