KENNETH SHUE was born in 1953 on Coronado Island before it was connected to San Diego by a bridge. He began his career drawing cartoons and performing magic tricks for friends and family, delivering newspapers, and painting houses.
In 1974, a fellow worker suggested he show his drawings to a company that developed industrial training films. He was hired and became a full-time working artist.
He moved to Palo Alto in 1977, where he began to manage the design and illustration of math, science, and reading textbooks for elementary and secondary school markets. These won numerous trade awards. He contributed graphic design and illustration to the growing tech industry in California’s famed Silicon Valley, including Apple. His clients also included the Stanford Heart Disease Prevention Program, and the Joan Baez Humanitas International Human Rights Committee.
He illustrated Hiawatha Passing, a children’s picture book for Henry Holt, which won a Kirkus starred review, and was selected by The New York Times as one of the ten best picture books of 1995. He was asked to join The Walt Disney Company that same year, and stayed there over 27 years.
As Vice President, Global Art and Design Development, he oversaw the design and illustration of Disney Publishing content for the Walt Disney Animation, Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm studios, as well as selected projects for Walt Disney Imagineering. He has won a Disney Publishing Worldwide Leadership Award, and a Walt Disney Inventor Award.
He and his wonderful wife, Janice, enjoy their incredible family, Jonathan, Olivia, Katie, and Ollie. In 2023, he designed and built a studio at their home in Monterey, where he maintains a daily practice of drawing and painting and from where he wrote this.
ken.w.shue@gmail.com
