Farewell, Jack: part 1

When JACK FERGUS, who is third from the right in John Sparey's portrait of the 1954 Disney bullpen, left the feature animation department for Imagineering, some of his fellow artists presented him with a first edition copy of the Disney Fantasia book, complete with some of their own artwork and farewell thoughts for the six-foot six-inch artist whose nickname was "Tiny".

As Disney veteran Dave Michener recalls (via Didier Ghez):

"[Disney artist] Jack [Fergus] belonged to a club called the “Tip-Top Club,” which was anybody over 6 foot 6 inches. I can tell you a funny story about Jack because we were assistants together at that point in my career. We were walking down the main hall in the animation building one day coming back from lunch. He had such an incredible arm span he was dragging his finger tips on both sides of the wall as we came back in the building. Walt Disney had just gotten out of the elevator and was coming our way. He looked and saw Jack and he said, “ Jesus Christ!” Jack was a very, very big man ... "

Courtesy of our friend the MegaCollector, we present a collection of artwork from this great artifact of cartoon history.

Above, the work of Earl Combs.

More to come ...