Peter Ellenshaw

Peter Ellenshaw was born in 1913 in England, where he endured a difficult childhood marked by his father’s death in 1921 and subsequent financial hardship. Frequent illnesses prevented him from attending grammar school, and at 14 he became an auto mechanic while nurturing his artistic talents through painting and drawing. His fortunes changed when he met Percy “Pop” Day, a pioneering visual effects artist who became his mentor and taught him the specialized technique of painting on glass to create matte backgrounds for film.
After serving as a Royal Air Force pilot in World War II, Ellenshaw returned to studio work and in 1947 received a life-changing call to work for Walt Disney Studios on “Treasure Island.” His partnership with Disney would span over thirty years and earn him five Oscar nominations. He won an Academy Award for “Mary Poppins,” creating 102 different mattes that recreated Edwardian London. Walt Disney became both mentor and friend, though after Disney’s death in 1968, Ellenshaw’s passion for filmmaking waned.
Ellenshaw increasingly devoted himself to landscape painting, and his final Disney film was “The Black Hole” in 1976. He later worked on “Superman IV” with his son Harrison in 1984. Now represented by Park West Gallery, Ellenshaw’s work appears in galleries worldwide and has earned honors from institutions including the American Film Institute, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.