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About...
Harrison
Ellenshaw |
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The son of Peter Ellenshaw,
a Disney legend and one of the most respected landscape artists
of our time, Harrison grew up with a keen and very traditional sense
of color, form and style. A special effects designer, Harrison has
memorable credits to his name such as “Star Wars” and “The Empire
Strikes Back”. His surprise discovery of the Fauves Art Movement
in 1989 turned that all on its head, and the timing of such a revelation
couldn’t have been more perfect. |
| Fauvism was a brief, violently colorful period
of artistic rebellion in France led by Henri Matisse. Short-lived
(1904-1908) and revolutionary, it packed enough anti-establishment
punch to send French art patrons of the day reeling in shock.
At the Salon d’Automne in 1905, critics decried the work
of the Fauves as “a pot of color flung in the face of the
public”. Like punk rock, the actual movement appeared and
exploded quickly, but the impression it made changed the
course of history. Matisse and the Fauvists implemented
the colors of their own unique artistic vision onto canvas,
and for maximum effect the pigment was often used straight
from the tube. Almost as soon as it began, the Fauves (“wild
beast”) movement was over, but their influence paved the
way for abstract art.
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| It was an exhibit of the Fauves work at the
Los Angeles County Museum of art in 1989 that proved to be
the epiphany for Ellenshaw, and it occurred during the time
he was working on the film “Dick Tracy”. As a result, the
Fauves’ influence is all over the unforgettable scenery and
backgrounds of the movie. More than eighty years after disappearing
from the art scene, the Fauves’ romantic, kaleidoscope sensibility
had reappeared – this time in Hollywood. |
Roger Ebert, of The Chicago Sun Times,
wrote: “‘Dick Tracy’ is a masterpiece of studio artificiality,
of matte drawings and miniatures and optical effects.
It creates a world that never could be.”
“Up until this point,” Harrison remembers, “I had been
painting trees with black, gray and brown trunks and
green leaves, and then I came across the Fauves, and
their intense use of color. Their art really touched
me. So I began to paint far more colorfully than I had
in the past. Today, it’s the color in a painting that
brings me the most joy. The great thing is that now
with the giclee process of making prints you can match
the colors and their intensity perfectly.”
“The Fauves rocked the art world in their day and their
legacy deserves revisiting,” says Collectors Editions,
Director of Creative Development, Steve Wetzel. “Harrison’s
color interpretation of these landscapes is vibrant
and intoxicating. It adds such depth to the viewer’s
experience when you see these images rendered in such
a way.”
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