The Google doodle honouring Walt Disney artist Mary Blair. Photograph: Google

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Google has honoured Mary Blair, an artist whose unusual style was immortalised in classic Walt Disney films of the 1940s and 50s, with its latest Google doodle.

Blair, who was born in Oklahoma on 21 October 1911, was best known for the artwork she contributed to animations including Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Cinderella. She also illustrated a number of children's books.

Blair's colourful, childlike images – vaguely reminiscent of the cubist movement – are credited with bringing modern art into popular animation and influencing a generation of illustrators.

Walt Disney was so taken with her designs that he recruited her to work on It's A Small World, an attraction that debuted at the 1964 New York World's Fair and has since been recreated in all of Disney's theme parks.

Other commissions for Blair, who died in 1978, include giant murals at Disneyland and Disney World.

Google's doodle features an image of the illustrator as she would have drawn herself, surrounded by the simplistic patterns and shapes that made up her familiar cartoon world.