Claire Keane (born March 1, 1979) is an author and illustrator and visual development artist who contributed to the Disney films '' Enchanted'', ''

Tangled ''Tangled'' is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated musical adventure fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Loosely based on the Grimms' Fairy Tales, German fairy tale ''Rapunzel'' ...

'', ''

Wreck-It Ralph ''Wreck-It Ralph'' is a 2012 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 52nd Disney animated feature film, it was directed by Rich Moore (in his feature director ...

'' and '' Frozen''. She is the daughter of Disney animator

Glen Keane Glen Keane (born April 13, 1954) is an American animator, author and illustrator. He was a character animator at Walt Disney Animation Studios for feature films including ''The Little Mermaid'', ''Beauty and the Beast'', ''Aladdin'', ''Pocahonta ...

and the granddaughter of cartoonist

Bil Keane William Aloysius "Bil" Keane (October 5, 1922 – November 8, 2011) was an American cartoonist most notable for his work on the newspaper comic ''The Family Circus''. It began in 1960 and continues in syndication, drawn by his son Jeff Kea ...

, creator of the comic strip, ''

The Family Circus ''The Family Circus'' (originally ''The Family Circle'', also ''Family-Go-Round'') is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Bil's death in 2011, is currently written, inked, and rendered (colored) by his son, Jef ...

'' and

Thelma Keane Thelma "Thel" Keane (née Carne; March 15, 1926 – May 23, 2008) was the Australian-born American wife of ''The Family Circus'' newspaper cartoonist, Bil Keane. Keane served as her husband's inspiration and model for the "Mommy" character in his ...

Early life

Keane grew up in California until, at the age of 16, she and her family moved to France. There she attended the

American School of Paris The American School of Paris (ASP), established in 1946, is a coeducational, independent international school in Saint-Cloud, France, in the Paris metropolitan area. The school has over 800 students from pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 and post-Bac ...

and the Paris outpost of the

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

. Keane then studied at the École supérieure des arts graphiques in Paris. She was encouraged to become a

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...

. However, she realized that she preferred developing and exploring visuals and stories. Her father

was just starting to develop the story of ''

'' and told her they would soon need a visual development artist. Keane and her husband moved to Los Angeles where she worked at Disney Feature Animation for ten years designing for ''Tangled'', ''Frozen'' and ''Enchanted'' among other films. In 2012, she left to work independently. Keane's first children's book ''Once Upon A Cloud'' came out in 2015 and her second book, ''Little Big Girl'' was published in the fall of 2016.

Career

As a conceptual artist during the production of ''Tangled'', Keane's work spanned the visual development seen throughout the entire film, but her work was arguably most visible as the murals the character Rapunzel paints on the wall of her home. For these, Keane hand painted the mural on a wall in the art department of the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Keane also illustrated the Disney storybook, ''Rapunzel's Amazing Hair.'' In 2020, she won an

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

Award for her work on Tangled The Series. For ''Enchanted'', Keane worked with costume designer Mona May to help realize Giselle's dresses. In 2013, Keane left Disney to focus on writing and illustrating children's books. She released her first illustrated children's book: ''Once Upon A Cloud,'' which ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' felt displayed her background in working for Disney. ''Little Big Girl'' has a "retro" look to the illustrations. The ''

Cape Cod Times The ''Cape Cod Times'' is a broadsheet daily newspaper serving Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, which encompasses 15 towns on Cape Cod with a year-round population of about 230,000. It is owned by Gannett, which also owns several ...

'' wrote that Keane's illustrations are a good match for Diane Adams' text in ''Love Is''.

Filmography

Books

References

External links

Official website

“Interview With Claire Keane”
on YouTube * Claireonacloud. "Claire Keane." ''Claire Keane'', claireonacloud.tumblr.com/. Accessed April 27, 2017. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Keane, Claire 1979 births Living people 21st-century American women artists American illustrators École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs alumni Daytime Emmy Award winners Walt Disney Animation Studios people Writers who illustrated their own writing