Karen Fang ”Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong”

In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Professor Karen Fang chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Background Artist: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• Karen Fang explains why only a full-length biography could do justice to Tyrus Wong’s 106-year life that encompassed his achievements across fine art, animation, Hollywood storyboarding, greeting cards and kite-making.
• Karen reveals that the title Background Artist is Tyrus Wong’s Disney credit in the original 1942 release of the movie Bambi.
• Among the most revealing archival discoveries was Tyrus Wong’s personal correspondence that showed a wickedly funny, warm and creatively restless person that no formal interview could have captured.
• Karen reveals how Tyrus Wong’s signature visual style, rooted in Chinese brush painting technique and aesthetic heritage, transformed racial difference from a liability into an artistic asset, enabling him to succeed in a society that otherwise offered very little opportunity to Chinese Americans.
• The closing passages of Background Artist tie together the themes of visibility, immigration and artistic legacy, ending with the line Karen says came directly from her conversations with Tyrus Wong’s daughters: ‘Tyrus was always simply an artist.’