August 14, 2005
DAN LEE (1969-2005)
Dan Lee remains both famous and anonymous. You might not have heard of this Montreal-born, Toronto-raised artist, but you already know his animated characters. Dan Lee was a character designer at Pixar Animation Studios for 7 years. His most famous character creations include the design of the lost clownfish Nemo from Finding Nemo, and the charming little girl named Boo in Monster Inc.
At the young age of 35, Dan Lee passed away much too early on Jan 16th, 2005, after a 17 month battle with lung cancer. To honor his Dan's life and talent, three of his good friends from Pixar, Mark Holmes, Noelle Page, and Carmen Ngai had an idea of compiling some of Lee's most recent personal artwork together as a coffee table book, In Your Face (Zippety Publishing), to show the other side of Lee to the rest of the world.
In Your Face is all about faces. When Lee wasn't busy designing blockbuster characters for Pixar, he could be found doodling the local coffee drinkers at Canvas Gallery Cafe in San Francisco, where the book launch will take place. All of the proceeds will be donated to a chosen charity. You can find more information about this event at:http://danleebooklaunch.blogspot.com
In Your Face
A Dan Lee Tribute, Exhibition and Book Launch
Thursday, August 25, 2005 7pm to Midnight
UPDATE: Ronnie del Carmen writes on his BLOG that the Dan Lee show on Aug. 25, will not just include Dan's artwork, but artwork by a variety of Pixar artists. All proceeds will go to charity. Artists participating include Albert Lozano, Robert Kondo, Ronnie Del Carmen, Ernesto Nemesio, Enrico Casarosa, Paul Topolos, Louis Gonzalez, Liz Holmes, Daniel Arriaga, and Jay Shuster.