Pierre Lambert, animation art consultant to famed auction house Christie's, gives us a preview of the magnificent pieces of animation art to be auctioned in April, 1999. Available in French and English.
Some of the many superb pieces that will be up for sale. Images courtesy of Christie's and © Disney. All Rights Reserved.
Christie's, the famous auction house, will be holding its next animation art auction on April 20, 1999 in New York City. Here with a preview of what will be offered is Pierre Lambert, author and animation art consultant to Christie's.
Heather Kenyon: This animation art auction has been postponed from last December? Why, and what does this indicate about the market?
Pierre Lambert: Christie's did not organize an auction last December because the number and quality of available art pieces was not sufficient. Everyone should realize that as time goes by, more of the very rare and unusual pieces are increasingly difficult to find; plus, the collectors are becoming more demanding regarding the quality and rarity of the pieces. One of the reasons why the market is not growing is because the pieces sold since 1984 don't reappear on the market. This shows that it is not a speculative market, but one of true collectors. Thanks to Christie's Animation Art Specialist Elyse Luray-Marx's research work our new auction offers a lot of high quality pieces. In fact, a few are exceptional.
HK: How do the pieces in this auction compare to what we see in our local stores?
PL: The limited edition market which mainly exists through art galleries and studio stores, perpetuates the illusion that any piece is great and beautiful. One can buy for $2,000 or $3,000 a very nice limited edition key set-up of a Disney film, re-created to look more or less close to the original. The original in most cases doesn't exist anymore and would be worth $20,000 to $100,000 at auction. Thus, beginning collectors prefer, for the same price as an original basic cel without a background, or a pencil drawing, a whole set-up cel with a reproduced background which is much more spectacular when they hang it on their wall, even if this piece is a poor imitation of the original and there are many copies of it. The collector can hardly see the difference because he has never had the chance of seeing the originals. This is why in my books I only reproduce original authentic pieces with as much fidelity as possible. I hope that this will inspire some limited edition collectors to purchase original pieces which have much more charm and patina.
HK: What are the especially spectacular pieces in this auction?
PL: In our next auction the main or key piece is a key set-up of Band Concert (1935), the first color Mickey short, which presents the famous mouse leading the band, or more exactly, leading what is left of the band after the cyclone. Very few key set-ups, which are full and exact images from the film, still exist today, plus this is a historical film, which explains why the estimate is between $60,000 to $80,000. Another beautiful key set-up depicts the animals coming into the Seven Dwarfs' house. The panoramic background is superb, even though it is not being presented with a Snow White cel and you can still see some of the glue where the cel was. It is a wonderful and very rare piece. Two other very old key set-ups will be in this catalogue as well: the wolf blowing the straw house down in the famous Oscar-winning short Three Little Pigs (1933), and second is of the three blind mice on a very nice watercolor background from the fabulous 1936 Silly Symphony, Three Blind Mousketeers. Other set-ups are also interesting such as Baloo dancing with King Louie (The Jungle Book, 1967), Alice with Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Alice in Wonderland, 1951), Tramp talking to Lady on a superb panoramic background (Lady and the Tramp, 1955) and we can't forget one scene showing Cinderella and the Prince dancing in the ballroom (Cinderella, 1950).
This auction contains more than 100 pieces and also includes cels from San Francisco's Courvoisier gallery, some pastel color studies from Fantasia (1940), a fabulous set of animated drawings by the renowned Marc Davis showing Maleficent and Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty (1959), some very nice storyboard drawings from Dumbo (1941), a few superb key set-ups from Pinocchio and a very rare black-and-white cel, which is in very good shape, of Mickey playing a piano in the film The Delivery Boy (1931).
HK: Which piece is your favorite?
PL: Personally, I really like the set of ten watercolor studies from the pool hall sequence of Pinocchio (1939). Each painting will be sold separately. Unfortunately, these sumptuous watercolor paintings are not signed and we don't know which artist created them. They are estimated at $2,000 to $3,000 each, which is very reasonable for such pieces. It was just too bad that I could not include them in my Pinocchio book.
HK: Why should collectors attend this auction?
PL: Auctions are major events for collectors because it is the first time that one can see the pieces, and the price is the true market price. The only concern that we have today is to be able to find enough quality pieces to organize auctions on a regular basis. This is why I am so pleased that this is a very high quality auction.
For a complete catalogue please call 800-395-6300. For more specific questions contact Elyse Luray-Marx, via phone at 212-606-0543 or fax at 212-606-0536.
Pierre Lambert's newest book, Mickey Mouse, is currently on sale and will be reviewed in an upcoming issue of Animation World Magazine.
Heather Kenyon is the Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Magazine.
