Book Review: “They Drew as they Pleased: The Hidden Art of Disney’s Early Renaissance” by Didier Ghez

Hi everyone!

We received They Drew as They Pleased Vol 5: The Hidden Art of Disney’s Early Renaissance by Didier Ghez to review (the book from Chronicle Books releases August 6th, 2019). This series has been a favorite of mine and Volume 5 covers the 1970s and 1980s and then quite a bit more. When I’ve posted about the book online previously, I’ve been asked how the 1970s and 1980s can be an early renaissance – but “The Disney Renaissance” is considered the time period from 1989 – 1999, once The Little Mermaid was released in theaters and included movies like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. And fittingly, the foreward on the book is by Don Hahn, who was a big part of the Disney Renaissance. But Volume 5 begins just a bit earlier than that, starting at when Walt Disney passed away in 1966. The head of the animation department put the task of creating “enduring characters and stories” with concept artists Ken Anderson and Mel Shaw. And unlike the fourth volume, this book has two chapters – one for Anderson, and one for Shaw. And the bios for them begin well before the 1960s and talk about films they worked on (and much more).

In the foreward, Don Hahn talks about how Anderson and Shaw began at Disney in the 1930s. They also later trained artists that included Brad Bird, Ron Clements, John Musker and Tim Burton. He notes that animated Disney films were released about every 4 years at that time.

Ghez prefaces the book by saying that “Most Disney history books tend to gloss over the animated features of the 1970s and 1980s as if nothing of significance happened between The Jungle Book (1967) and The Little Mermaid (1989). Ghez said that he cried when he opened boxes of artwork for Robin Hood, and he chose the most beautiful ones for the book.

They Drew as They Pleased Vol 5: The Hidden Art of Disney’s Early Renaissance runs through a lot of key moments, whether it was Walt Disney’s passing and the need for the animators to find their way after that or the beginning of the new Character Animation Program at CalArts. The faculty at CalArts did not want a character animation program, but it did debut – in 1975, with the first year including Brad Bird, John Lasseter and John Musker.

The two chapters talk fairly in-depth about Ken Anderson and Mel Shaw. Anderson spent over 40 years at the studio and impressed Walt. Anderson was an architect, and did not think he could draw cartoons. His wife thought otherwise, and encouraged him to get a job at the Disney studio. Not only are the 70s and 80s talked about, but these are histories of two men in the Disney company followed by quite a bit of concept art on the pages following.

Mel Shaw was different than Ken Anderson in that while they both started at Disney in the 1930s, Anderson stayed and Shaw left and started his own company with another artist (sometimes doing work still for Disney). But in 1970, Ron Miller approached Shaw about coming back and revitalizing the animation department and he did. The last film that Shaw worked on was The Lion King.

Concept art in the book includes art from The Rescuers, Sword in the Stone, Robin Hood, The Aristocats and more.

They Drew as They Pleased Vol 5: The Hidden Art of Disney’s Early Renaissance– as other books in the series – is a fantastic animation history book. It’s nice to learn more in-depth about the artists who created many of our favorite films (and Ken Anderson also worked on Disneyland and Epcot). I always recommend these books by Ghez and hope there is another one in the future!

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