Animation Art Revving Up
Sales and prices are strong.

By Debbie Hagan ABN Contributing Editor

Animation art isn’t just kids’ stuff. In January, an animation cel from Disney’s "Fantasia" sold at American Royal Arts for $65,000. In February, a cel from "101 Dalmations," inscribed to John F. Kennedy, Jr., and signed by Walt Disney, sold at Sotheby’s for $61,000.

In the ’60s, a tourist could pick up a cel in Disneyland for as little as $5, but those days are long gone. Prices for rare vintage cels have shot up to as much as $498,000.

"There’s been a tremendous shift in the industry," says Heidi Leigh, owner of Animazing Gallery, New York, commenting on escalating prices, increasing sales, and major market changes affecting animation art. "Not everyone agrees that [animation art] is fine art, but they all recognize it is a lost art form."

Disney’s last hand-animated movie, “The Little Mermaid,” came out in 1989-16 years ago. Subsequently, Disney released “Toy Story” (1995), a Pixar movie done with 3-D computer imaging. Now all animated features and practically all cartoons-from the “Simpsons” to “Spongebob Squarepants”-are digitally created.

Thus, the age of original, hand-painted production cels is over. With no new production cels being made and the supply of vintage cels dwindling, the public is taking a second look, and gaining new respect, for this remarkable American art form.

History

A “cel” is a sheet of cellulose nitrate or acetate on which an animator paints a cartoon figure or scene. Traditionally, the image was photographed and linked to sequential still images on film. As the film ran through a light projector, at 24 frames per second, the images appeared to move.

An animator would need 20 to 100 cels for a single cartoon scene, says Steve Grossfeld, seller of animation art for 25 years and now co-owner of Gremlin Fine Art Gallery, Manchester Center, VT. Thus, an animated feature could contain 75,000 cels or more.

Thus, millions upon millions of cels should exist. However, old cels were damaged, and those made on cellulose nitrate, a highly flammable material, were often destroyed. And some cels are less desirable because the characters’ eyes are closed, or they’re not favorably positioned. According to Craig Kausen, president of Irvine, CA-based Linda Jones Enterprises and grandson of celebrated animator Chuck Jones, Warner Brothers destroyed its entire animation archive. Jones learned of this in 1978, when a Midwestern art dealer, Edith Rudman, approached him about marketing vintage images of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, and other Warner Brothers characters.

Thus, Jones set out to re-create the cels. Rudman, with Jones, released limited edition, hand-painted and hand-signed cels modeled after scenes from the original cartoons. Rudman sold these to Neiman Marcus and produced a catalog, “Gallery Lainzberg,” in which she nationally marketed the cels. Trendy animation art galleries popped up, and, in 1984, Christies held its first animation art auction. Its original production cels from ’40s-era Mickey Mouse films and “Pinocchio” and “Snow White” sold for as much as $20,000. From there, the animation art market exploded.

Retail Animation

But some would say that there were too many stores. Ultimately, Disney had 522 retail outlets, and Warner Bros. had 120. Thus, the animation art market became saturated, says Animazing’s Leigh, an animation art dealer since 1982.

“Art sales are always based on supply and demand. There was simply more of a supply than demand,” says Leigh, relaying how galleries saw animation cels drop off in the late ’90s. They were being sold like novelties, she says, next to T-shirts, mugs, and stuffed animals, which made the art seem like ephemera-an image art dealers worked hard to shake.

“You can’t sell art like that,” Leigh says. “The kids who were selling it weren’t savvy. They weren’t able to nurture and build collections.”

As the bottom fell out of the animation art market, Disney and Warner Bros. studios abandoned their retail ventures. Warner Bros. closed its stores in 2001. Disney began closing its stores in 2002, turning the remaining stores over to The Children’s Place in 2003.

“It exposed the art to many, many people,” Kausen says about studio stores. “The downside was this is a fine art. Just like a Picasso etching or an original done in the 19th or 20th century. [Animation art] should be presented in a fine art environment.”

Broadening the Market

Now, according to Clampett, “The challenge for the publishers is that there are fewer venues where people can see [animation art].” To continue keeping the work of her father and other animators alive, Clampett opened Clampett Studio Collections. She continues selling original Warner Bros. production cels, as well as publishing new artists such as Alex Ross and Jim Lee.

Galleries such as Animazing have picked up the slack since the studios left the retail business. Leigh says sales have risen, and she now runs three galleries in SoHo, Westchester County (New York state) and New Orleans. However, Leigh says, animation galleries have changed and are more diversified today. While she’s still known as “The Queen of Animation,” Leigh describes her gallery as “fine art that’s fun.”

She sells brightly colored prints and paintings by contemporary artists, most of whom have some connection with cartoons or animation. Among her artists are Tom Everhart, Peter and Harrison Ellenshaw, David Willardson, and Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel. Another one of her artists is Dick Duerrstein, who creates limited edition, canvas giclée prints of Wile E. Coyote, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny. He is published by Linda Jones Enterprises.

“If Chuck lived forever I would ask him to paint,” says Kausen. However, Jones died in 2002, at age 89. Thus, Kausen turned to Duerrstein, who worked for Disney for 20 years, to carry Jones’ torch. In the series, “Homage to Chuck Jones,” Duerrstein uses Chuck Jones’ drawings as models for sketch-like images made in pencil and brush. The backgrounds are soft, giving more emphasis to the cartoon characters.

Playing upon a similar nostalgic appeal, Clampett Studios has released, “Origins of Tweety.” Clampett’s father, Bob Clampett, created the wide-eyed baby bird. The art looks more like a collection of memorabilia, made up of carefully crafted two- and three-dimensional elements. It features two photographs with gold corners (one is Bob Clampett’s baby picture, the inspiration for Tweety), a pen button, a 4-inch square hand-painted cel, and a vellum-printed transcript of the artist talking about the character. The edition is limited to 142.

“People have become more sophisticated in what they want. They want more of the history,” says Clampett.

Again, offering art buyers more history, American Royal Arts, Boca Raton, FL, has just signed a deal with Disney Art Classics to publish vintage animation art images. In addition, the company has signed a deal with Disney Records to publish artwork from old Disney record covers. “It’s the 50th anniversary of the Mickey Mouse Club, and there’s a whole record line of artwork that is just breathtaking,” says Jim Lentz, partner in American Royal Arts, an 18-year-old animation art company that sells everything from giclées and hand-painted cel reproduction to vintage cels, and original production storyboards and drawings.

Related Art

Some art buyers want only images that contain the animator’s hand. However, vintage cels are becoming scarce and pricey. Thus, many customers, says Gladstone of American Royal Arts, are now turning to original storyboards, production drawings, background drawings, and other related animation art. Generally, these images sell for less than many cels.

Some collectors actually prefer this art over the slick, polished cels. “This is what the animator actually drew!” says Kausen. “My collection is much more based on drawings and on the layout and the noncolor [animation artwork].” Some collectors feel as if this art, with its notes and directions, provides a window into what the artist is really thinking, like a page in his creative diary.”

“For a long time, people were talking about vintage artwork, but didn’t have a specific time frame,” says Kausen. “Now things from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s are as old as the things that I used to call vintage. They just didn’t get that much attention when the industry started.”

Among those are newer cartoons, such as “Speed Racer,” “Smurfs,” “The Pink Panther,” “The Grinch,” “Mighty Mouse” and a variety of super heroes. For a long time, cartoons and animated features looked like kids’ stuff. But now, Kausen says, the public regards them as “one of three truly American art forms-Broadway shows, jazz, and animated cartoons.”

But for baby boomers, the buy is emotional. They fondly recall being engrossed in Saturday morning cartoons, watching the Roadrunner foil Wile E. Coyote, listening to Elmer Fudd sing “Kill the Rabbit,” or seeing Porky Pig wave and say those famous words, “That’s all Folks.” Animated art brings back the kid in all of us.