Frank Armitage

Frank Armitage (5 September 1924 – 4 January 2016) was an Australian-born American painter and muralist, known for painting the backgrounds of several classic animated Disney films, designing areas of and painting murals for Walt Disney World and Tokyo DisneySea, and his biomedical visualization artwork.

Biography

Early life and Mexican mural painting Frank Armitage was born in Melbourne, Australia. There were 16 years between him and his sister, and without a sibling to play with, he turned his attention to drawing. He then quit art school and sailed to Canada, where he worked in Montreal for 18 months to earn enough money to get to Mexico City by bus. After his retirement, Armitage returned to Walt Disney World to create the murals of camouflaged animals in the Pizzafari restaurant at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

Armitage made the production illustration and Academy Award-winning set designs for the 1966 sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage. He painted scenes of the interior of the human body, which were then turned into larger-than-life sets. On October 6, 1989, Armitage was given the opportunity to paint a picture of the Dalai Lama while the latter was in a meeting with six neurologists about life after death.

Armitage volunteered with the Flying Doctors in rural Mexico. He lived near Paso Robles, California, with his wife, Karen Connolly Armitage, who is also a retired Imagineer. They ran an architectural design business called Armitage Images. He also created oil paintings and murals for private homes.

Awards and honors In 2006, the College of Applied Health Sciences, Biomedical Visualization Program, part of the University of Illinois at Chicago, established the annual Frank Armitage Lecture Series, which honors Armitage's anatomical artwork.

On July 18, 2009, at the Anaheim Crowne Plaza Resort in Anaheim, California, Armitage was honored as a Disney legend and given the Disney Legend Award by the National Fantasy Fan Club (NFFC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring the life of Walt Disney.