Century Birthday - Joe Grant

Disney artist Joe Grant was born a century ago today in New York City. His parents Eva and George Albert Grant made their home at at 611 W. 136th Street in Manhattan, where George worked as an art director at the New York Journal. Eva was a native New Yorker whose parents immigrated from Russia and George arrived with his parents from Poland (or Russia) at the age of five and settled in Philadelphia.

Joseph Clarence Grant* was born in the spring of 1908 and before he was three years old, the family had relocated to Los Angeles when his father was hired as art director on the Los Angeles Examiner. After a couple years they had returned to New York and soon Joe was joined by a sister, Geraldine.

For Eva and the children the bounce from Los Angeles and back to New York would be repeated over the years as George had issues with alcohol and frequently lived apart from his wife and children, even when they were in the same city.

When he was ten, Joe, Geraldine and their mother were back in Los Angeles living with her father, Abe Green. Two years later they had returned to New York, but lived with aunt Sophia, (his mother's sister) at 105 113th Street. His father was a short walk away on 110th Street. By the time he was in high school in 1924 they had returned to Los Angeles where they lived at #28 Avenue 24 in Venice, just a few doors from the beach.

Following high school, Joe would further his art studies at Chouinard near downtown Los Angeles, where a decade later he would return as an instructor. He soon after got a job as an artist for the Los Angeles Record (with a little help from his father) and in a short time he was asked to create caricatures for the paper's Drama section. His illustrations here would eventually catch the eye of Walt Disney. The newspaper clipping at left is an example of Joe's caricature work for the L.A. Record in August, 1932.
(click for a larger view)

In 1929 Joe had married and was living at 1224 S. Norton Avenue. A year later they had moved up the street to 1337½ S. Norton Avenue.

He was hired at the Disney Studio in 1933 based partly on his ability to caricature celebrities -- a talent needed for Mickey's Gala Premiere, a short being made at the time. Pictured here is an early gag drawing he drew later that year for the Silly Symphonies short, Funny Little Bunnies. In time he would come to head the Character Model Department at the studio.

By the mid 1930s Grant had moved to 4930 La Roda Avenue** near Eagle Rock, a much shorter drive to the Hyperion Avenue studio.

By 1938 Jennie and Joe had settled in the Verdugo Woodlands neighborhood above Glendale. The house at 1346 Opechee Way would be home they would share for more than half a century. They would raise their two daughters, Carol and Joann in this house.

Grant's first association with the Disney Studio ended in 1949 when the Character Model Department was broken up. He would return to work at the studio in the late 1980s. In the four decades in between Joe continued his artwork and formed Castle Ltd. (for the creation of greeting cards) and along with his wife, Opechee Designs a ceramics studio. Some of the tiles he created are shown below***.
Sadly, his wife Jennie passed away in June, 1991

Joe passed away on May 6, 2005 in his studio doing what he loved. He was a few days shy of his 97th birthday.

* When I asked Joe what the "C" in his name stood for he laughed and said Clarence, and he added that it was the kind of name that could get you beat up when you're a kid!

** In the 1935 city directory he is listed at 3950 La Roda -- an address that today doesn't exist. The addresses may have been re-numbered that year, in which case it is probably the same house.


*** The artwork for the tiles is owned by the estate of Joe Grant [Jennifer Grant-Castrup]
Tiles shown are from the collection of the author.