Peter Ellenshaw, who died Monday at 93, created stunning visual effects for Disney live action films, including “The Black Hole,” “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” and “Mary Poppins,” for which he shared the 1965 Oscar for special effects.

Ellenshaw specialized in panoramic matte paintings on glass that were added to the film after the initial shoot. Thus, “Mary Poppins,” with its detailed evocation of old London, was actually filmed on a Hollywood soundstage.

In addition to working on dozens of films, Ellenshaw was a fine artist, particularly known for his seascapes and paintings of the Irish countryside.

Born on a farm in Essex, England, in 1913, Ellenshaw while in his 20s apprenticed with W. Percy Day, the greatest matte painter of his day in the British film industry. Ellenshaw cut his teeth helping to create mattes for “Things to Come” (1936), “The Thief of Baghdad” (1940), and, after flying a fighter plane for the Royal Air Force during World War II, “Black Narcissus” (1947).

In 1947, he was hired to work on Disney’s first live-action feature, “Treasure Island” (1950), which was filmed at the company’s new British production facility. He moved to California in 1953 to begin working for Disney full time. In addition to contributing backdrops to all of Disney’s live-action films, he created a well-known map of Disney World. He also contributed to various attractions at Disneyland, including TWA’s Rocket Ship to the Moon and the X-1 Satellite View of America. Occasionally, he took uncredited outside jobs, one of which was a view of Rome for Stanley Kubrick’s “Spartacus” (1960).

In addition to wining the Oscar for “Mary Poppins,” Ellenshaw was nominated three more times, for “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (1971), “The Island at the Top of the World” (1975), and “The Black Hole” (1979), which he helped create after Disney summoned him out of retirement.

“‘Darby O’Gill and the Little People’ [1959] remains one of the most amazing, eye-popping achievements in all of film history,” the film critic Leonard Maltin said in a statement. “People never knew how he accomplished his visual feats.”

Ellenshaw moved in 1970 to the southwest of Ireland, where he began painting the Irish coast and landscapes. He enjoyed painting other rugged locations as well, including the Himalayas and the Mojave. His hyperrealism, while unfashionable, commanded top prices at galleries in New York and Pasadena, Calif. “Sophisticates think they’re corny,” Ellenshaw told the Los Angeles Times in 1965.

In 1979, the Museum of Modern Art exhibited Ellenshaw’s Disney matte paintings, and in 1993, Walt Disney Studios designated him a “Disney Legend” and commissioned him to create a series of paintings of scenes from Disney features.

Ellenshaw’s daughter, Lynda Ellenshaw Thompson, became a Hollywood special effects producer, and his son, Harrison Ellenshaw, became a matte painter and was nominated for an Oscar along with his father for “The Black Hole.”