Many sons growing up in the shadow of a famous father feel that they want to carve their own paths in life. “That was me,” said Harrison Ellenshaw, son of Disney legend and master painter Peter Ellenshaw, who won an Oscar for his visual effects work on "Mary Poppins” and was nominated five times for the Academy Award. “I had grown up fascinated by my father's painting." Harrison said. “He would sometimes give me canvas and paints. I have photographs of me painting when I was a small boy. My father's life was painting, even during meals he would bring the canvases he was working on into the kitchen and sit and eat and look, criticizing his own work. My mother was not always pleased that this was how the family spent mealtime, but she understood his passion. I found both this passion and his incredible talent intimidating. I was convinced I could never live up to any of it.”

Harrison graduated from Whittier College with a BA in psychology. By then, in the early 70s, the country was in the throes of a recession and Harrison found it difficult to find a job. “I remember driving with my father one day,” he recalled, “and he said, “Well, you know, just for the time being, if you're interested, the matte department at Disney is looking for apprentices.’” The department head at that time was Alan Maley, who had worked as a matte artist with Harrison’s father in years past. “So I went and talked to Alan, and we agreed that we'd give it six months.”

“Alan became my mentor,” Harrison said, “and it was due to his enthusiasm and encouragement that I really got bitten by the film bug. It had been unique growing up having a father who knew and worked for Disney -- he was a living legend, an icon. But in a sense I took being in a 'show business family’ for granted. It was Alan who showed me what was so special about film -- about matte paintings - how your work on shots could be an integral part of telling a story." After four years, Alan retired. "He told me I could take over as department head. It usually takes twelve years as a journeyman to become a department head. The studio was a little hesitant and I was scared to death. But Maley offered to return to give me a hand if necessary, so I took the job.

Then, Harrison got a phenomenal break. “Fate smiled on me, as it had for my father,” he said. “I got a chance to do some work on ‘Star Wars’”. At this point, a tale of two Ellenshaws becomes the tale of two separate Ellenshaws, as this is where Harrison began to really strike out on his own, away from his father’s legacy. His work on “Star Wars” was so well received that he was asked to return to work on “The Empire Strikes Back." By this time, having clearly carved a niche for himself, Harrison had no problem working with his father on Disney’s “The Black Hole” in 1979. Harrison then went solo again to add his unforgettable touch to “Tron,” one of the most unique and visually stunning films ever, now a cult classic.

After work on "Captain Eo," "Superman IV," "Ghost" and other films, a memorable year for Harrison was 1989 when he worked on “Dick Tracy.” “The matte paintings were visually the stars of that film,” he recalled. “And by then I was doing some fine art paintings on my own."  It was around that time that an exhibition of Fauve artists came to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

(Fauve, which in French means “wild beasts,” was a name given to a group of up and coming rebel French artists in the 1900s who included among their ranks Henri Matisse and Andre Derain. The Fauve painters took a traditional art form and began using forms and colors which were not found in nature, painting familiar objects with startlingly “wrong” colors in an attempt to “liberate color.”)

“Up until this point I had been painting trees with black, gray and brown trunks and green leaves,” Harrison said. “And then I came across the Fauves, who were only in existence a few years, and their intense use of color. They had done something I really enjoyed and appreciated. So I began to paint far more colorfully than I had in the past. Today, I enjoy painting as much as ever and I enjoy doing things that are really colorful. The great thing is that now with the giclee process of making prints, you can match the colors perfectly."

Harrison’s work has been exhibited in New York, London and San Francisco.

Introducing the Collaborative Art of Peter and Harrison Ellenshaw.

As a visual effects designer and filmmaker, Harrison Ellenshaw's work can be seen in such films as STAR WARS, TRON, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, CAPTAIN EO, DICK TRACY, and many others. He has also had a successful career as an artist with one-man shows of his paintings in London, New York, and San Francisco.

Peter Ellenshaw has received five Academy Award® nominations, winning the Oscar® for his stunning recreation of Edwardian London in the Walt Disney's classic, Mary Poppins. Throughout the years, Ellenshaw has sought to capture the drama and emotions of many different scenes. His work is represented in both public and private collections worldwide. He has received numerous honors and retrospectives including those by the American Film Institute, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Film Institute of Chicago, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the R.W. Norton Art Museum in Shreveport, Louisiana and has been bestowed the illustrious title of "Disney Legend."

In their first creative collaboration since Disney's, "The Black Hole" (1979), Peter & Harrison Ellenshaw came together to create "We can Fly". Their first in a series of collaborative works celebrated the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney's, "Peter Pan".

Their second piece was "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," which according to Harrison, "was my introduction to Hollywood, at least to the Disney style of epic movie making. This was an exciting time, seeing my father involved in one of Walt Disney's most successful live action films."