FROM: Squeak of the Week Published Fridays

From My Family Photo Album: Ryman at Random

You know you're in for a long night when the new couple from up the block invite you over for dinner and then ask whether you want to see their family photo album. What can you say? If you're in John Donaldson's house, you say: show me more!

- John Stanley Donaldson, July 1, 2011

Back in the Sixties, the first naked lass any adolescent lad was likely to see usually had staples across the navel. Mine, though, was a framed oil painting, appropriately titled Nude, which I helped pack for an art exhibition to be held at the Hancock Park home of Harrison and Anne Price.

Such show would be first in a series overseen by a DAFCA committee, being Disney Artists for Cal Arts, to raise funds for said, all-encompassing campus Walt wished built in Valencia. While later exhibitions might be a mix by many, such as Al Dempster, Blaine Gibson, Collin Campbell, and Mary Blair, this Ryman at Random was just that; a solo set of rambled subject and medium by my mentor, Herbert Ryman.

Built in 1920, the pricy Price home was of Tutor Revival style, with richly appointed paneling; but very little would be pockmarked by pinhole, making use of informal family room and patio to hang most paintings instead.

Held on the occasion of Herbert's fifty-eighth birthday, those helping to shape the celebration included Lillian Disney, Roy and Edna Disney, Ron and Diane Disney Miller, Sharon Disney Brown, architect Welton Becket, a Saint Bernard by the name of Hennesy... and me.

So, from all those years ago, let's have a few photos from now faded Kodachrome...

In the first, we find said DAFCA committee; left to right, Marty and Leah Sklar, Harrison and Anne Price, Sharon Disney Brown, Richard and Ann Irvine, Marvin and Marjorie (Walt's niece) Davis, Thomas and Tommie (Walt's personal secretary) Wilck.

In the second snap, Harrison and Anne enter the patio area through distant doorway; now famous Nude can be spied over bar.

And finally, two people of whom I was especially fond: the lovely, Sharon Disney Brown (later Lund), seen with Herbert Ryman's portrait of her at sixteen; and the marvelous Marjorie Davis.

John Stanley Donaldson, once the protege of Disney Legend Herb Ryman, is the author of Mr. Ryman's biography, Warp and Weft: Life Canvas of Herbert Ryman, which you can purchase directly from the author's site.

More: SQUEAK OF THE WEEK