Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong

by Karen Fang

Two scenes define Tyrus Wong’s remarkable 106-year-old life. In the first scene, a small boy in padded Chinese jacket gazes forlorn behind iron bars, torn from his father and detained indefinitely in a desolate U.S. immigration center off the California coast. In the second scene, the boy is a young man, an aspiring artist in sunny Los Angeles whom Walt Disney suddenly promotes to a key role in the making of beloved animated film Bambi. How did the boy become an artist, and what role did that trauma play in the beautiful imagery he later created for Hollywood? How do the two scenes connect to the seventy years after Bambi, when Tyrus worked as a studio sketch artist for Warner Bros., designed best-selling Christmas cards that sold in the millions, and spent a nearly half-century retirement flying his beautifully unique handmade kites on Santa Monica beach?

Background The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong is a kaleidescopic story about the immigrant origins of some of America’s best loved visual imagery. A chronicle of art and Asian American experience set against the backdrop of over a century of American history, Background Artist speaks to lovers of art, film, animation, and illustration history, and readers of biography, Asian American, and California studies.

536 pages, Hardcover

Published October 11, 2024

About the author

For the author of works on networking, please see: Karen Fang Conroy.

Dr. Fang is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Houston, USA.

She works on British Romantic literature, film studies, imperial history, and cultural studies.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tyrus Wong is one of the unsung heroes of early Hollywood, whose work on Bambi and other films has since touched many generations of moviegoers. In this much needed biography, Karen Fang documents not only the story of an artistic luminary, but also that of a Chinese American living under the racist strictures of the Chinese Exclusion era. Background Artist is an essential addition to the literature on Asian American history.

[Alex Baron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I approached this book knowing about Tyrus’s Disney work, specifically Bambi, but not much beyond that. This book is a fascinating read into his life - and wow what a life. Coming over from China as a child, he would quickly become a highly skilled artist, mixing western and eastern artistic styles to great effect. Even though his time at Disney is short, his influence on Bambi can’t be overstated. And his Xmas cards and kites are beautiful works as well.

I highly recommend this book if people want to learn about Tyrus, both his work and his life. My only quibble is that the author seems to confuse dates when it came to the Disney strike of 1941. While the labour issues likely helped Disney decide not to renew his contract, Fang insinuates that he was laid off following the strike’s conclusion several months later. It is my understanding that Tyrus was already at Warner Brothers by the time the strike really started to get heated and way before the settlement that led to layoffs in 1942.

[Son Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Fang's heartfelt and inspiring portrayal of Tyrus Wong, a key artist behind "Bambi," is captivating. It was heartbreaking to learn of the prejudice Tyrus, a Chinese immigrant and artist, experienced, particularly given my own Asian heritage. His humility and determination enabled him to build a life in the United States.

While it's sad that he wasn't publicly recognized until later in life, his passion for creating art—from kites to greeting cards—brightened his days. What an inspiring read!

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive study of much more than the artist🎋🎨

This is much more than a biography of Tyrus Wong. It's a very detailed rendering of the political, artistic and cultural atmosphere that shaped Tyrus Wong's life and career from the moment he boarded a ship from Hong Kong in 1920 to San Francisco until his death 96 years later. He lived a fascinating life, filled with challenges and triumphs very ably described by the author. I was drawn to the work by his connection with Disney and his work on 'Bambi'.

While Tyrus and his family's story really captured my interest, I am not an academic and that so much of the book covered so many other individuals in the Western U.S. art scene made the story less appealing. Yes, many of them were friends and colleagues but there's just so much detail a reader should be expected to retain. And I wish there had been more samples of Wong's work, especially from the Disney, Warners and greeting card art.

The coverage of the evolution of America's attitude towards Asians was illuminating, from the 1870's Chinese Exclusion Act to its repeal in the 1940's and a subsequent about face embracing Asian art and design. I found that author Karen Fang did an excellent job describing how anti-Asian sentiment directly affected Wong for decades, even once he had earned recognition and financial success.

I am glad I found this book; just wish it had been briefer and more focused on Wong himself.

Thanks to Rutgers University Press and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

[Daniel Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-researched and comprehensive overview of Tyrus Wong's eminent career as a master of multiple artistic mediums, told with particular care to the unique role Asian-American artists occupied in the Hollywood boom of the 20th century. I came for the Bambi stories but left with a profound appreciation for what Wong carved out for himself in racist, but inexorably artistically minded America.

I was hoping for more of an artistic focus about the specific cultural impacts of Wong's work, although there is definitely plenty of great detail about Wong's time in art school, his commissions for churches and restaurants, and his time at WDAS and Warner. This is more of a regular biography with excellent analysis from Fang's film scholarship, but as such, I think it was hard to keep focus of all the moving balls in the bio. I tend to like very focused razor sharp case studies, but this is a great introduction to Wong's joyous, diligent, and beautiful life, and I look forward to diving more critically into his art.

[Xavier E · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this thrilling biography detailing Tyrus Wong‘s life, author Karen Fang delineates both his art and personal lives, meshing them together to paint a vivid picture of the struggles of a young Asian American immigrant turned artist. Fang explores the upbringing of Tyrus, and how both his parents’ sacrifices and early racial injustice motivated him to become one of the most accomplished artist and designer to have ever graced Disney. Quite possibly the most important theme of the book is the idea that all immigrants are background artists, in which Fang shows how Tyrus’s early life helped shape the creativity in his art, one notable example being unable to afford ink as a child, and how that transferred to Tyrus’s resourcefulness in the studio.
In conclusion, Fang weaves a tale of both hardships and imagination to detail the life of Tyrus Wong, an artist and designer who rocked the world with his groundbreaking Christmas cards and decorations, setting a precedent for future Asian Americans to let them know that they are true artists, a legacy America will never forget.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a well researched and highly intersting book about Tyrus Wong, an Asian immigrant, who was an overall fantastic artist in so many different ways. The title, "Background Artist" comes from his scenic work on the Walt Disney "Bambi" movie, but Mr. Wong also worked for Warner Brothers. And most of all this is a history of his life, living over 100 years, and all the wonderful art he created beyond his work for the studios. He created cards for Hallmark and made beautiful kites along with the more ususal paintings and craft work. What a wonderful soul.

The author, Karen Fang, really loved her subject. The book is thoroughly researched, and the history of the way the Asians were treated in this country needs to be understood. Best of all 'maybe' are all the wonderful pictures of Mr. Wong's art. A most marvelous book even if you only looked at the pictures, but please read the book as it has so much to tell. A book that makes you fall in love with the artist.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Background Artist, by Karen Fang, is that wonderful kind of biography that weaves an artist's work and the societal world which plays a role in every life into the life story of a remarkable man.

My familiarity with Tyrus Wong's work was minimal, his Disney work and a vague knowledge of his commercial work. This book does a wonderful job of discussing the work itself as well as what his motivations and influences were, both personal and cultural. Presenting all of this within the historical period in which he lived and worked gave an even better understanding and appreciation.

I would enthusiastically recommend this to readers of biographies in general as well as those who like learning about social history through the lens of specific lives. Well-written and researched with beautiful illustrations.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Mary C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Instrumental in the success of Disney's animated film Bambi, Tyrus Wong's life is detailed from his month long stay at Angel Island and the challenges he faced due to the Exclusion Act along with other laws that affected the work he was allowed to do. Being denied the right to become a citizen or to lease or buy property are a small sample of what he had to deal with. Support from fellow artists due to his tremendous talent did gain him recognition in his field. An important addition to Chinese American history in a country that still considers Asians as other.
#BackgroundArtist #RutgersUniversityPress #NetGalley

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous dive into the life of Tyrus Wong. Fang does a wonderful job in her writing of combining facts, emotions, memories, analysis, and historical records into context to create an empathetic and enlightening narrative. Wonderful work about a fascinating person.