"Beauty Nursed the Beast's Wounds"

From Nielsen's imagination of the Fairy Realm comes this early (c40's) inspirational painting for "Beauty and the Beast" when at the Disney Studio it was only an infant idea for a feature that was to come to reality in 1991. The grotesque beast who according to the original story considered eating "Beauty' and her father is rendered in a beautiful decorative effect while "Beauty" stands out surrounded by a blank space characteristic of several of Nielsen's works. -- In making the film Disney had a problem. A problem that only inspiration and creativity could solve. How can Belle really fall in love with the Beast? This was a long-time struggle for the Disney team until the producers found this painting in my collection from original concept work done decades ago. It depicts Belle nursing the Beast to health. This exact idea was borrowed by Disney as a way to spark the romance between the two characters. A question that had stumped Disney from the 1950s to 1990s was solved from this piece of art. It was their "missing link". They photographed it and interviewed me for inclusion in their Blue-Ray adaptation.