Background Artist
You might not know the name Tyrus Wong, but you probably know some of the images he created, including scenes from the beloved Disney classic Bambi. Yet when he came to this country as a child, Tyrus was an illegal immigrant locked up in an offshore detention center. How did he go on to a long and prosperous career drawing animation cels, storyboards, and greeting cards that shaped the American imagination?
Background Artist shares the inspiring story of Tyrus Wong’s remarkable 106-year life and showcases his wide array of creative work, from the paintings and fine art prints he made working for Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration to the unique handmade kites he designed and flew on the Santa Monica beach. It tells how he came to the United States as a 10-year-old boy in 1920, at a time when the Chinese Exclusion Act barred him from legal citizenship. Yet it also shows how Wong found American communities that welcomed him and nurtured his artistic talent. Covering everything from his work as a studio sketch artist for Warner Bros. to the best-selling Christmas cards he designed for Hallmark and other greeting card companies, this book celebrates a multi-talented Asian-American artist and pioneer.
What is more amazing: the artwork of Tyrus Wong, or the story of his life? Intertwining both, Fang’s captivating narrative unveils Wong’s immigrant journey to his groundbreaking contributions to Bambi and beyond.
Background Artist is simply a must-read for any art or history buff. Karen Fang blends art, Hollywood, California, and American history into a beautiful, important portrait of a beautiful, important life. Packed with vivid details, she brings Wong's fascinating story to life. As essential as it is moving, this book is just wonderful.
Karen Fang has created a sweeping and richly detailed portrait of Tyrus Wong that captures both the breadth and beauty of his art and the complexity and often cruel irony of living in a society that simultaneously embraced and tried to erase him. Background Artist is a stunning achievement.
Karen Fang has written a deeply researched and intimate biography of the great modern Chinese American artist Tyrus Wong, whose elegant, poetic and dramatic brushstrokes have been enjoyed by millions. This is an inspiring and pertinent portrait of Wong, an immigrant child who lived to be 106 years old, and who struggled to overcome racism with his art.
In Background Artist, Tyrus Wong finally receives the biography he deserves. Placing Wong’s life within the broader narrative of Asian American history, Karen Fang illuminates the ways in which events ranging from Chinese Exclusion to Japanese American wartime incarceration to the creation of the Model Minority myth influenced Wong's work as an artist. Fang’s engaging, highly readable style, makes this a must-read for academic and general audiences alike.
Through incredible storytelling, Karen Fang effortlessly illuminates historical context through Tyrus's lived experiences of the injustices, restrictions, and complexities of The Chinese Exclusion Act. Background Artist broadens and deepens our perspective and above all humanizes our understanding of not only the past but our present. What a valued gift to our community!
Karen Fang has done a thorough and meticulous job chronicling the life of the remarkable and inspiring Chinese American artist Tyrus Wong. Here was a man of many firsts, who surmounted many professional obstacles and personal struggles. Without having met Tyrus, Fang has captured his sense of humor and the wondrous way he looked at the world around him. As a book, Background Artist is as versatile as Tyrus was and will find a place on many different shelves: Chinese American history, Disney lore, art history, and artist biography.
In her compulsively readable, painstakingly researched biography of the multi-hyphenate Tyrus Wong—storyboard and sketch artist at Disney and Warner Bros., painter, illustrator, Hallmark card designer and kite maker, Chinese émigré and American trailblazer—Karen Fang skillfully blends political, cultural, and motion-picture history to tell the gripping story of one of classical Hollywood’s unsung heroes.
Karen Fang portrays Tyrus Wong's illustrious career in a way that's just as bright and brilliant as the artist's most dazzling work, all while examining it against a very dark time in America. This is an important story that's been left out of our history books.
Background Artist is a beautifully written biography of Tyrus Wong, an artist whose life spanned over a century and whose work crossed boundaries of fine, commercial, and entertainment art. Karen Fang is a master storyteller and deft interpreter who brings to life this remarkable individual by contextualizing Wong’s significance in relation to Chinese American history and the history of art.
This is the inspiring journey of the long and extraordinary life of Tyrus Wong — an immigrant whose talent as a visionary artist transcended barriers, shaped unique cinematic landscapes, and left an indelible mark on our industry. Background Artist is a testament to the American dream!
A crucial account, brimming with illuminating detail, that brings to light the contributions of one of the unsung creators of twentieth-century popular culture, from Disney to Warner Bros. to Hallmark—and beyond. Karen Fang has given us the gift of a quintessentially American story.
Karen Fang unveils the rich tapestry of Tyrus Wong’s remarkable life from his early struggles as an immigrant to his pioneering contributions in art, films, and beyond. Despite facing discrimination and adversity at every turn, he soared above every challenge with resilience and humor, reminding us of the Chinese saying ‘real gold does not fear the test of fire’. A must-read for anyone seeking to know the full story of a legend whose legacy extends far beyond his work on Bambi.
In this deeply researched and timely biography, Karen Fang rightly positions Tyrus Wong at the center of American visual culture of the mid-20th century. Background Artist brings Wong and the Chinese diaspora to the foreground, reorienting how we think about Hollywood, California history, and American commercial production, generally.
A classic Hollywood tale about an immigrant who overcame overwhelming odds to leave a lasting mark on American culture, Karen Fang has written the definitive biography of Tyrus Wong. Background Artist is a book that left me feeling uplifted and inspired. It makes an important contribution to our understanding of the Chinese American experience.
KAREN FANG is a film scholar and cultural critic who writes for museums and film festivals around the world. A Professor of English at the University of Houston, her previous books include Arresting Cinema: Surveillance in Hong Kong Film and Romantic Writing and the Empire of Signs: Periodical Culture and Post-Napoleonic Authorship.
Prologue
Note on Names and Translations
Part I: Not Just a Paper Son
1 Not Too Far from Alcatraz…
2 S. S. China
3 Paper Son
4 Look Get/Wong Sai Po
5 Angel Island, Devil’s House
6 Alien, Excluded from Citizenship
Part II: Becoming Tyrus
7 Boy Scouts, Baseball, and Apple Pie
8 Playing Hooky
9 That City of Celestials
10 You Don’t Want to Do This S**t
11 The Otis Years
12 "An Outstanding Student Who Warrants Reentry"
13 Dragon’s Den, Artists’ Lair
Part III: Profession: Artist
14 Ruth
15 Thank God for the WPA!
16 A Family Blooms on Juanita Avenue
17 Man of the Forest
18 War (“I Am Chinese”)
19 “Be a good boy”
Part IV: China’s Greatest Gift to Western Culture
20 On the Warner Lot
21 Sunland, or, Art of the Pacific
22 Model Minority?
23 America’s Favorite Card Designer
Part V: Always Look Up
24 Go Fly a Kite
25 Faan Heang Haa (The Return)
26 An Empty Place in the Sky
27 Legend
28 A Well-Lived Life
Coda
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Art in the Lives of Immigrant Communities in the United States
Edited by Paul DiMaggio and Patricia Fernandez-Kelly; Introduction by Patricia Fernandez-Kelly
Ballad of an American
A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson
By Sharon Rudahl; Edited by Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware
Ida Lupino, Director
Her Art and Resilience in Times of Transition
By Therese Grisham and Julie Grossman
Cinema '62
The Greatest Year at the Movies
By Stephen Farber and Michael McClellan; Foreword by Bill Condon
