So last time on the podcast, as we started out this series, we explored the early life of Mary Blair,

along with that of Lee Blair and Preston Blair. We followed Mary, then known as Mary Robinson

from Oklahoma to California, where she studied first at the San Jose Teachers College and then went to

Shenard Art Institute as she continued her work with illustration and also

watercolors. We also looked at Lee's childhood in Los Angeles where he grew up in a

family that offered definite ideas as to what success meant within the Blair household,

a family whose past was intertwined with American politics and commerce.

All three of them.

Mary, Lee, and Preston would eventually end up at the Disney Studio where they'd work on classic features.

But as we left off last time, Preston, the oldest of the three, had just graduated from art school

and found work animating Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for Universal Pictures.

While Mary and Lee were still moving through their courses

at Chenard and were just getting to know each other.

And today we continue the story of Mary Blair, the person many believe was Walt's favorite

artist. The art school that both Mary and Lee attended would shape them as artists, though in different ways for their future

careers.

As Lee moved through Schenard Art Institute, he found a home with other young watercolorists

who mostly studied under Millard Sheets.

Lee also had the sense that he and a few other classmates were artists at the forefront of a new aesthetic

movement. For decades, American artists had been influenced by art movements originating

in Europe, but the effects of the Depression, a cultural experience that would be studied

for decades, caused Minnie and Lee's Art Circle to find new value in the space and people around them.

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