Daniel Read worked for more than twenty years in the United States and Italy as a painter and teacher of painting and figure drawing before joining Disney's Paris studio as a background painter on the animated short "Runaway Brain." He earned the Master's Degree from the University of California, Berkeley where he studied under Elmer Bischoff and Joan Brown, and also attended the University of California, Davis, where he studied under Wayne Thiebaud. His fine art has been exhibited in the United States, Scotland and Italy, and is in numerous private collections in the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland and Italy.