Recruiting Peter Ellenshaw for Spartacus
Stanley Kubrick wrote, directed, and produced some of the most compelling films of the 20th century. Because Kubrick began his career as a photographer the visual aspect of storytelling was crucial to his work. It makes sense then that he would hire acclaimed Disney artist Peter Ellenshaw to create a matte painting for his 1960 epic, Spartacus.
What is Matte Painting?
Matte painting is an important part of movie-making. Mattes are painRecruiting Peter Ellenshaw for Spartacustings, usually on glass, that become a part of the final film either through cinematography or post-production visual effects. The medium can transform a soundstage floor to a plunging cliff, a swimming pool into a large ocean, or an open space into the ancient Roman Forum, as with Peter Ellenshaw’s painting. The black portion of the painting is where the live-action footage would be filled in.
The Display at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is showed a retrospective exhibition of Kubrick’s work and it included Peter Ellenshaw’s matte painting. Peter’s son--who is also my dad--Harrison and I visited the show in February. It was great to see the painting in a museum with my father, and share the pride in my grandfather’s work. The medium is not normally shown in a fine art setting, so it was great that LACMA gave visitors a chance to see the matte painting process up close! Any fans of film, writing, sets, costume design, or photography would have appreciated the show’s thorough look into Kubrick’s process.
Peter Ellenshaw was an accomplished matte artist, easel painter, and art director, among other talents. Ellenshaw worked personally with Walt Disney, beginning with Disney’s first live action feature film Treasure Island. He is most known for winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on Mary Poppins. Like Kubrick, Disney was good at noticing talent and assigning appropriate tasks to the right people. Ellenshaw credited Walt Disney for giving the simple “matte painter” more responsibility with the overall look of whatever film they were working on. What these three filmmakers, Kubrick, Disney, and Ellenshaw had in common was a vision of the whole picture, which led to great success.
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Hilary Ellenshaw is an art historian living in the Bay Area. She wrote her Master's thesis on the Diego Rivera mural at the San Francisco Art Institute. Hilary grew up in Los Angeles with a filmmaking family. Her grandfather, father, and aunt all worked for Disney. Hilary spent her childhood playing at Disneyland and the Disney Studios lot in Burbank.