Untitled (train in snow)

Robert Francis Maxfield

This Depression-era etching of a train engine and a railroad car, snowed in on a side track was done by Robert Maxield in the 1930s when he was trying to survive as a Fine Artist, before his move to animation with Disney. A bundled-up figure crosses in the foreground. The viewer can almost sense the stillness and bitter cold, when the snow crunches with each step and your breath freezes your moustache. (Memories of rural Wisconsin).

Robert Francis Maxfield was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on October 15, 1918. Maxfield moved to California in 1920 and during the 1930s he lived in Carpinteria, on the Pacific coast. After serving in the Army during WWII, he returned to France where he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. Returning to California, he started as assistant animator at the Disney Studios in the mid-1940s. He then worked at Hanna-Barbera until about 1970. Hanna-Barbera studios sent him on an assignment to France where he opted to remain.