Q&A with Karen Frang, author of BACKGROUND ARTIST: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong

The following is a Q&A with Karen Fang, author of BACKGROUND ARTIST: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong (Rutgers University Press). Karen is a film scholar and cultural critic who writes for museums and film festivals around the world. She is a professor of English at the University of Houston, and her previous books include ARRESTING CINEMA: Surveillance in Hong Kong Film and ROMANTIC WRITING AND THE EMPIRE OF SIGNS: Periodical Culture and Post-Napoleonic Authorship. She is also a regular contributor to a nationally distributed public radio series, where her stories always focus on art and visual culture.

You may not know the name Tyrus Wong, but you’ve likely been enchanted by his work. Best known as the lead concept artist on Disney’s beloved Bambi, Wong created the film’s ethereal, dreamlike landscapes—imagery that helped define its enduring emotional power and visual identity.

Wong’s delicate, Asian-influenced style also graced bestselling Hallmark Christmas cards, shaping the American visual imagination across generations. During a nearly 30-year tenure at Warner Bros., Wong contributed to some of Hollywood’s most iconic films, including Rebel Without a Cause and Camelot. Yet, his story begins far from Hollywood red carpets—in the Angel Island immigration detention center, where he arrived as a 10-year-old boy under a false identity, a “paper son,” due to the racist restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

In BACKGROUND ARTIST: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong (Rutgers University Press), author and scholar Karen Fang delivers the first and only full-length biography of this quietly groundbreaking figure, chronicling not only Wong’s rich artistic legacy but also the complex cultural and political landscape he navigated as a Chinese American immigrant during a century of seismic change. Packed with vivid details, Fang’s narrative unveils a kaleidoscopic exploration of the immigrant origins behind some of America’s most beloved imagery.

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How did you first learn about Tyrus Wong? Why did you want to write a biography?

Like many people, I was intrigued by the extensive coverage of Tyrus when he passed in 2016 at the remarkable age of 106. A documentary about him had just come out the year before, and his passing in late 2016 (just after the first Trump election) came at a time of heightened anti-Asian, anti-immigrant rhetoric. Like many people, I was struck by the extraordinary story of a Chinese immigrant who couldn’t even become a citizen at the time he helped make Bambi. But once I learned  more, such as his work as a fine artist, the nearly three decades he spent at Warner Bros., and his work as a bestselling Christmas card artist, I knew we needed a full-length book about this singular life and career.

 

What is the meaning of the title, BACKGROUND ARTIST?

My title, Background Artist, plays on Tyrus’s Disney history as well as the importance of immigrants to art and national culture. In Bambi’s original 1942 release, Tyrus is credited as a “background artist.” That label can seem inadequate recognition of Tyrus’s huge influence in the film, but I turn that term on its head, reclaiming it as the perfect metaphor for immigrants. As I say in my book, all immigrants are background artists, and immigrant artists are particularly compelling for how their art enriches our world, and how they refuse to stay in the background. 

Were there any obstacles in getting the book published?

I don’t know if I’d call it an “obstacle,” but I wonder whether race and Tyrus’s Asian American identity impacted how long it took to place Background Artist with an agent and publisher. I got multiple rejections expressing their belief in the value of my project, but their concern that it “just wasn’t marketable.” But with a career encompassing Disney, Warner Bros., and Hallmark, I find it hard to believe that Tyrus’s life isn’t marketable! The #OwnVoices movement is right about the need for publishing to see beyond traditional figures. As Tyrus himself often said, sometimes it felt like he had to be twice as good just to get half the credit. 

You wrote much of BACKGROUND ARTIST during the COVID-19 pandemic. How did that experience shape your writing process and emotional connection to Wong’s story?

Throughout the pandemic I felt so lucky to have the perspective acquired from studying his life. On one hand, it is shocking that after a century anti-Asian rhetoric is still common and immigrant rights are precarious. On the other hand, as an American born in the U.S. decades after Tyrus arrived here, I know how much easier my path has been. My goal in sharing Tyrus’s story is that by learning from the past we will choose to move forward. 

Were there any surprising or particularly moving discoveries you made during your research that impacted your approach to Wong’s life or legacy?

When I started researching this book I knew it was a story about an extraordinary individual, but I didn’t fully realize yet that this one man’s life was also a biography of creative communities and the social bonds that a shared love of creativity fosters. Over and over in Tyrus’s life we see how his talent made connections and brought him opportunities unusual for a Chinese at that time. Beauty and creativity sustained him and so many in his circle when they endured the indignities and injustice of Chinese Exclusion and Japanese internment, and that same shared joy in creativity drew people to his circle from all walks of life. Telling Tyrus’s century-long biography was also a history of generational creativity, both the communities he belonged to and the later generations he inspired. 

With over 100 illustrations in the book, how did you balance the interplay between text and image—especially in telling the story of a visual artist?

The pleasure and challenge of writing about visual art is sharing its look and the feeling, without presuming to substitute for the work itself. With a biography, it was an easy choice to do this by portraying Tyrus’s artistic process: how one cocks the wrist in Chinese ink painting, or how physically demanding is the labor of making lithograpic prints.  

Background Artist’s abundant illustrations are invaluable in showing Tyrus’s genius, but I hope the description and narrative also does that. The audiobook version of Background Artist is excellent, as listeners hearing about Tyrus’s work get that same sense of wonder and discovery that I’ve written into the text.  

BACKGROUND ARTIST is meticulously researched and accessible. How did you approach the book’s tone and voice? Were there any writers or styles that influenced you along the way?

I love research and had already written several academic books, but I knew Tyrus’s story deserved the largest possible audience. As I learned to write differently, I always kept in mind two literary touchstones: Robert Caro’s The Power Broker and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The Power Broker is important because its massive, deeply researched biography shows how one man’s aesthetic vision shaped twentieth-century American culture. Background Artist applies that same focus to a nonwhite noncitizen and, like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, reveals the previously unknown person of color whose transformative impact on modern life is literally everywhere. 

As a cultural critic and film scholar, how did this project shift your understanding of authorship, visibility, or recognition in American creative industries—especially for immigrant artists?

Another insight that came only through writing was the importance of commercial art. In art history and criticism fine art practices like oil painting, abstraction, and the unique, singular work are the sine qua non of genius. But immigrant artists and artists of color often face challenges and lack of support beyond the usual gamble of dedicating one’s life to art. Commercial art opportunities like print illustration, advertising, motion picture sketch work and the decorative arts can be great opportunities for income, artistic visibility, social and professional advancement. Tyrus’s success a greeting card artist is a case in point. Although Tyrus is best known today for Bambi, the bestselling Christmas cards he designed for Hallmark and others earned him fan mail. They are still bought and traded today.

You write that “all immigrants are background artists.” How did writing about Wong influence your own views on immigration, identity, and who gets to be seen in American history?

As a child of immigrants myself, I know how much immigrants give back to their adopted country. Like many people, I worry about America’s current position on immigration—policies which not only might lose potential innovators in science, technology, and the arts, but which also seem to overturn the very ideals on which America was founded. “Want more geniuses? Welcome immigrants” is a headline I mention at the of end of Background Artist. I hope my book will help people see how much is gained—and what we risk losing—when we turn our back on the brilliance of human diversity.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Fang, author of BACKROUND ARTIST: The Life and Work of Tyrus Wong (Rutgers University Press) is a film scholar and cultural critic who writes for museums and film festivals around the world. She is a professor of English at the University of Houston, and her previous books include ARRESTING CINEMA: Surveillance in Hong Kong Film and ROMANTIC WRITING AND THE EMPIRE OF SIGNS: Periodical Culture and Post-Napoleonic Authorship. She is also a regular contributor to a nationally distributed public radio series, where her stories always focus on art and visual culture. For more information on BACKGROUND ARTIST please visit this book website and for details on Fang’s professional career visit her main website.

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Category: Interviews