Duncan Alanson Spencer

Duncan Alanson Spencer

Duncan Alanson Spencer was noted as one of his generation’s most sought-after scenic artists. His thirty-eight-year career was distinguished by his mastery of drawing, perspective, color theory, and value. Gifted as an artist from childhood, Spencer fell behind in school after a two-year delay in his education due to tuberculosis.

He eventually dropped out of high school to attend the Chouinard Art School. Spencer stayed for three months before leaving to apprentice as an illustrator with Beaumont Graphics. There, he created work for an advertising firm and greeting card company. He also woke early on weekends for two years to practice drawing with Beaumont at dawn’s first light.

Duncan Spencer’s Hollywood Career

In 1932, Spencer joined the Painters and Sculptors Club of Los Angeles. In 1937, he shared his portfolio with George Gibson and was hired to work the same day as a pot boy at MGM.

Spencer eventually worked for 20th Century Fox, Columbia, Universal Studios, Warner Bros., and R.L. Grosh & Sons. Over the course of his career, he worked on more than four hundred films. His credits include The Wizard of Oz (1939), White Christmas (1954), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), National Velvet (1944), Julius Caesar (1953), The Robe (1953), The Student Prince (1954), Irma la Douce (1963), The Apartment (1960), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), The Fortune Cookie (1966), and Ziegfeld Follies (1946).

Dioramas, Exhibitions, and Public Projects

Spencer painted the iconic 1957 Disneyland Grand Canyon diorama and IBM exhibits for the New York World’s Fair in 1962. In 1965, he left the motion picture industry for a short time to paint the background for the Elephant Habitat at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

That first project led to the commission of twenty dioramas at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. For a time, Spencer moved between projects at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Under the DAS label, he also contracted significant projects. These included the “First Vision” display at the Mormon Visitor’s Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Schlitz Brewing Company, now Coors, contracted Spencer to paint a 192-foot-by-16-foot mural for its Hospitality House in Memphis. In addition, he painted the “We the People” diorama of the Capitol, which hangs in the Smithsonian in the Political Hall.

Later Years

Spencer retired to Mariposa, California. He spent his last days painting hundreds of oil paintings and watercolors of California and the American West.

That keeps the facts you supplied: the 1957 Disneyland diorama, IBM/New York World’s Fair reference, 1965 Elephant Habitat project, twenty NHM dioramas, Los Angeles/Denver overlap, DAS label, “First Vision,” Salt Lake City, Schlitz/Coors, the exact 192′ × 16′ scale, Memphis Hospitality House, “We the People,” Smithsonian/Political Hall, Mariposa, and the hundreds of oils and watercolors.