Background
Earle was born in New York, but his family moved to Hollywood in 1918.
Earle was born in New York, but his family moved to Hollywood in 1918.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rahr West Art Museum, Phoenix Art Museum and Arizona State University Art Museum have purchased Earle"s works for their permanent collections. He began painting when he was 10 years old, and had his first solo show in France when he was 14. Earle"s first New York exhibition was at the Charles Morgan Galleries in 1937.
His work at this time was realistic painting.
In the 1940s he painted more than 800 Christmas card designs for the American Artist Group. In 1951 he joined Disney as an assistant background painter and received cr for the experimental background painting in the Goofy short, Foreign Whom the Bulls Toil.
He also worked on Peter Pan, Working for Peanuts, Pigs is Pigs, Paul Bunyan, and Lady and the Tramp. He was responsible for the styling, background, and colors for the high-acclaimed Sleeping Beauty.
In 1961, Earle completed a 18-minute animated segment of the Nativity story for the Tennessee Ernie Ford hosted television special The Story Of Christmas on National Broadcasting Company. Earle returned to full-time painting in 1966, producing watercolors, oils, sculptures, drawings, scratchboards, and limited-edition serigraphs.
Much of this work was not exhibited in his lifetime. Earle was critically acclaimed by such publications as Time, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New York World-Telegram, The Art News and The New York Sun. Earle"s work and distinct graphic styling has continued to inspire new generations of artists and animators, serving to influence the look of other animated films.
These have included the Disney features Pocahontas and Frozen, as well as the graphic style of Sony"s first computer animated film, Open Season.