Jules Engel, 94, Abstract Artist, Animator on 'Fantasia'
Hyfler/Rosner
Jules Engel, 94, Abstract Artist, Animator on 'Fantasia'
By STEPHEN MILLER Staff Reporter of the Sun
Jules Engel, an artist, animator, and teacher whose interpretations of
color and movement can be found on the walls of Museum of Modern Art - as
well as in Walt Disney's "Fantasia" and in cartoon shorts starring Mr.
Magoo - died September 6 at a hospice in Simi Valley, Calif. He was 94.
Already an abstract painter and experienced animator, Engel was 27 when
he was hired to do the choreography for the Chinese dance in "Fantasia"
(released in 1940). The dance was performed by wild mushrooms, to music from
Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite." Engel also designed the Russian dance for
"Fantasia," using a color palette influenced by Picasso, Matisse, and other
modern artists whom he admired.
After World War II, he was one of the founders of United Productions of
America, where he helped design productions for Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mr.
Magoo, both graphically pioneering cartoons that won Academy Awards in the
1950s. Later, he worked on "The Alvin Show" (as in the Chipmunks) and a
cartoon version of "The Lone Ranger."
He introduced the achievements of abstract art to animation, which had
been dominated by a sometimes slavish realism in the prewar period. Disney
cartoons were known for their highly detailed backgrounds. Engel fought to
have his dance scenes in "Fantasia" drawn against an entirely black
background, heightening their graphic purity. In his work on "Bambi" (1942),
he introduced wild, unnatural colors to heighten the emotion of the scene
where Bambi meets the doe Faline.
In 1962, his short animated film "Icarus Montgolfier Wright," about a
voyage to the moon, was nominated for an Academy Award. The story was by Ray
Bradbury.
Although well-known and highly honored for his commercial work, Engel's
greatest achievement may have been in his teaching. When the animation
industry tanked in the mid- to late-1960s, Engel (thanks to a recommendation
from his friend, the memoirist Anaďs Nin) found work as a teacher at the
California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia. There, he founded the
experimental abstract animation department, which counts among its alumni
director Tim Burton ("Batman," "Beetlejuice," "Mars Attacks"), John Lassiter
("Toy Story," "A Bug's Life," "Finding Nemo"), and many others.
He ceased to work commercially, although his many independently produced,
animated shorts were screened at film festivals around the world. He also
kept up a steady production of painting and prints, much of it abstract,
some of it cubist.
Engel was born in Budapest in 1909 and moved to Oak Park, Ill., when he
was 13. He was offered a track scholarship by UCLA, but turned it down to
work as an "in-betweener" for the animation pioneer Charles Mintz,who had
been the original employer of such talents as Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney.
(Inbetweeners filled in the cels between the ones actually drawn by the main
animation artists.)
After leaving the Disney studio in 1942, he worked on the old Hal Roach
lot, producing films for the Army Air Corps under the leadership of Ronald
Reagan.
Despite teaching students who would create and direct much of the best
animation of the last 25 years, Engel took no credit for their work.Asked in
1998 by Animation World Magazine what he would like his students to remember
about him,he answered,"That I had nothing to do with their accomplishments!
That might sound silly, but it's the truth."
He lived for years in Hollywood, where he surrounded himself with an
artistic crowd of students and friends, among them his two wives. Both wives
predeceased him, and he leaves no survivors.