Widely respected independent animator and animation historian John Canemaker will sign his latest book, The Art and Flair of Mary Blair, and present an illustrated lecture on Blair's life and career. Following an intermission, we present a rare 35mm screening of Alice in Wonderland, with color and styling by Blair.

Mary Blair (1911–1978) was one of Walt Disney's most brilliant conceptual designers, helping define the look of such classics as Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953). She also brought her distinctive, colorful style to children's books, advertisements, theatrical set designs, and theme park attractions, and the deceptively naïve style of her commercial artwork belied great visual sophistication in everything from color choices to composition. Although much of her art veers away from naturalism toward abstraction and Surrealism, she was one of Walt Disney's favorite artists. Blair went for abstraction and collagelike patterning in her concept paintings for Alice, most dazzlingly in the “March of the Cards” sequence, with its dynamic staging and palette and its play of shadow and light.