"Disney Artists' Holiday Wishes," a special collection of personal Holiday Greeting Cards—created by Disney Studio animators, comic strip artists, story men, a "Mooseketeer," and even the creator of the voice of Donald Duck—is our special holiday exhibition, and will run through December 31 this year. The delightful holiday exhibit features more than 50 hand-drawn cards, created from 1937-1970, by many of the most creative and well-known Disney talent. Today, we'd like to highlight the WDFM's Communications & Marketing department's favorite cards, those from artist Bill Peet!
Bill Peet
Storyman, Sketch Artist; Years at Disney: 1937- 1964
Bill Peet came to Disney in 1937 and participated in a one-month audition process with 15 other eager individuals, out of whom he was one of the few to be hired. He immediately went to work as an inbetweener on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but found the work tedious. Luckily, after submitting some character sketches for Pinocchio, Peet was transferred to become a story sketch artist. He would go on to create character designs for Dumbo and work in story development on Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book and other films. Peet quit Disney after his development work on The Jungle Book was rejected by Walt (Peet and Walt had famously argued frequently, but Peet was glad he'd always been respectful to his boss, because Walt died a little more than a year after Peet had resigned). The artist moved on to writing and illustrating full-time (he wrote his first book, Hubert's Hair-Raising Adventure, in 1959 while still at Disney), and in all created more than 30 well-loved children’s books. In 1989 he won the Caldecott Honor Book Award for Bill Peet: An Autobiography. He was married to Margaret, whom he met in art school, and had two sons (Bill Jr. and Steve).
Little known fact: Bill drew many of his story sketches of Captain Hook in Walt’s likeness.
