Art Corner Restorations: Pete & Donald

Ah, the magical, mystical Art Corner. Long ago, it was Disneyland's dispatch center for thousands of vintage Disney cels, where you could buy original Disney artwork as a souvenir!

The Art Corner setups were often very puzzling - unlikely characters from completely different movies thrown together, with non-matching print backgrounds.

The cels were trimmed (often badly). I'm sure the idea was, the smaller the trim job, the smaller the mat... less cost! And the mats were not top-of-the-line to begin with!

All this showed how little regard was given to the actual artwork. It was making movies that was the thing... the artwork was just a part of the process, thought relatively worthless once photographed.

But thank God Disney sold these at the Art Corner instead of hauling them to the dump. Little did anyone know at the time, they were saving a significant portion of animation history.

As a collector, I find the Art Corner pieces intriguing for many reasons. Not least is the fact that you could buy hand-painted original Disney artwork for a dollar! (Occasionally slightly more. The very high end pieces I'm told were five dollars. That was for large setups with multiple characters.)

As a collector, I also enjoy saving pieces of animation history that might otherwise end up lost.

Such is today's story of Pete and Donald.

When I acquired this two-cel setup it was a mess. It had just about every problem possible. Cracking and missing paint plus major adhering problems. Not only was the bottom cel (Pete) adhered to the colored art board B/G (a common malady), Donald (the top cel) had adhered to the top of Pete. Specifically, the colored paint on the back of Donald's cel had adhered to Pete's ink lines on the top of his cel.

As I said, this was a mess. A big mess.

But the beautiful thing about cel restoration (done properly) is it can bring back damaged art. Even as bad than this!

The cels went to my talented restoration artist. And I began my research.

The Donald cel was immediately recognizable from DONALD IN MATHMAGICLAND. I digitally re-created the key master B/G.

As for the Pete cel, it's from interstitial material from "Donald's Award." Walt created his TV animation in color. Some of it was filmed in both color and black and white. Maybe someday the color version will surface and we'll see it.

In the meantime, the black and white version is on YouTube. Take a look!



The restorations turned out beautifully. But even more mind-boggling, my artist friend Kathy is capable of painting stunning reproduction key master backgrounds in every Disney style and from all eras.

I sent Kathy these screen grabs.


Using her imagination, she concocted the dandy custom B/G (and its color palette) for Pete. Fantastic!

Two wonderful pieces of vintage animation art are now restored with key master background presentations.

Is this a great hobby or what??!!!

CRUELLA

Pictured here, the finished setup of Cruella DeVil, one of the greatest animated villains of all time. Mark Davis was the Disney artist who brought her to life. He animated every frame of this character, a Disney first.

Here is the cel, originally released by the Art Corner at Disneyland. Great pose, beautiful colors. Imagine getting this for a dollar!Unfortunately I was about 30 years late for an Art Corner bargain. But I was still delighted to add this to my animation art collection in January 2008. I purchased it from the good folks at the Van Eaton Gallery in Sherman Oaks, CA. They are great people, with a staggering array of artwork from which you can choose. They are knowledgeable and friendly, and their prices are very fair. The Van Eaton Gallery gets my highest recommendation. When in the Los Angeles area stop by and tell 'em Rob Richards sent you!
Van Eaton's presentation had cleverly set up the cel with a laserprint of a background layout drawing of Roger and Anita's living room. It was quite nice. But ever the perfectionist, I wanted my setup with a digitally recreated key master B/G from the movie. And fortunately I knew just the guy to do it... me!

With the key master B/G recreated, Cruella was carefully positioned, and the cel now precisely recreates the exact frame in the movie. With one exception... the new setup actually lets us see more of the cel than we did in the movie!

More POPPINS PENGUINS with DONALD DUCK!

Last year, I was delighted and surprised to find two Disneyland Art Corner original animation cel setups, featuring the unlikely pairings of Donald Duck (from the film AMERICA AND STEEL, 1963) and penguins from MARY POPPINS (1964).

These came from separate sources but appeared within days of each other! Simply unbelievable.

The likelihood of this ever happening again was absolutely impossible. Right? Wrong!

I recently received an email from a very thoughtful fellow who discovered me via my animation blogs. He'd found some original Disney cels at an estate sale, tucked in between some old vinyl records. He asked if I had any interest in them. You better believe I answered that email quickly!

I made an offer, he accepted, and the deal was done. The cels arrived today. They are absolutely mint. No restoration needed (rather unusual for cels over 40 years old). These look like they were painted yesterday! Even the clear plastic cel material (on which the art is painted) is flawless, without any rippling or shrinking so often seen on pieces like this.

Typical of Art Corner setups, the color print backgrounds provided are totally non-key, from unrelated films. The pine tree B/G is from PAUL BUNYAN and the wintry B/G is from 101 DALMATIANS! Not to worry, I am at work on digitally reconstructing the key Master backgrounds for each individual cel.

Art Corner setups included the official "Gold Seal" certificate of authenticity affixed to the back of the artwork. Here's the Gold Seal from the Donald/Penguin with the "Paul Bunyan" background:


Perhaps the most amazing thing is the original Disneyland price, handwritten in pencil on one of these setups - $1.50! Oh, if only I had a time machine...

The Art Corner presentations as originally released by Disneyland are pictured above. Below, the the cels' actual corresponding moments in their respective films. Don't forget to click on the photos to see the larger versions with more detail.


And finally... the cel setups with their new digitally re-created key backgrounds:

SHERE KHAN (The Jungle Book)

This special setup from THE JUNGLE BOOK is a true collector's prize. Shere Khan cels are very rare.

The original Art Corner cel was in pretty rough shape. Cel paint was cracked, some missing, and the original piece had a yellow art board background that had obviously received some water damage. Professional restoration brought back the stunning beauty of the image.

Here's a comparison montage of the cel, before and after restoration:

The original frame in the movie looks like this:

The re-created background was created successfully for this presentation, even though it is one of those that couldn't be completely finished, as Shere Khan doesn't completely move out of center. The small "unrestored" area (maybe 5% of the total image, in the lower center) is of course hidden behind the cel. (The finished setup is the image at the very beginning of this post.)

POPPINS PENGUINS and DONALD DUCK too (2)!

As you know, I like to say "every cel has a story to tell." This post documents many aspects of the excitement of cel collecting. Each phase of acquisition, restoration, and setup has its great moments.

In early 2007, I was able to obtain not one but two separate original Art Corner cel releases, featuring Mary Poppins' dancing penguins paired with Donald Duck cels from "America and Steel" (a 1963 industrial Disney edutainment film with live action and animation segments with Donald). As was the practice at the time, the cels were trimmed and stapled to plain pieces of colored art board.

The dancing penguins are among the most treasured of Poppins' animation art. How lucky I was to acquire two at virtually the same time! Here they are, close-up and side by side. The left penguin was mint, needing no restoration. The right penguin had paint "bleeding." It almost seems the art board leeches the paint away from the cel. You can see the cel paint outside the cel lines. This required minor restoration (clean up).
Next... here are the the Art Corner cels and their respective frames in each movie:


The Art Corner pieces were in varying conditions. On the "red B/G setup" the little Penguin on the top cel layer was carefully peeled away, completely intact and original, perfect and needing no repairs. Donald's cel paint had severely adhered to the art board (very common). This prevents adding a background. However, the paint remained original and in perfect condition. I opted to just leave this Donald cel "as is."

The "Gray" setup which I promply named "Bedraggled Donald" showed some common conditions seen in Art Corner cels. The penguin's paint had bled, which required the restoration artist to carefully refine the paint lines. Donald's paint was severely cracked and also had several points adhered to the Art board.

Unfortunately, the cel lost most of its original paint being separated from the art board, so it got a visit to the "Ink and Paint Spa" in Burbank, and received a meticulous makeover with exact color matching.

The restoration was a great success. Here is the restored cel, placed on the original art board. You can see the adhered original paint left behind. The red arrows point out the staple holes, another clear sign of Art Corner provenance.

Once the restorations were complete, it was time to design the setups.

I was able to get a DVD transfer of "AMERICA AND STEEL" and digitally re-created the key Master background for the restored Donald.

The completed setup with restored cel and key master background looks like this:

The other Donald I left as is. It later went to another collector.

I know you're wondering... how did the Penguins turn out?

One little guy was re-united with a perfectly key "Bert" and friends. He's the gray-bellied penguin far left. (Original cels rarely use white paint, as the intensely bright light used during cel photography would "flare." The gray color appears as white when photographed. Here is a scan of the finished setup.

As for the other Penguin, I had a custom-painted background created for just for him, a re-creation of the "restaurant" from which the penguins emerge during their moment in the film.

Like all the pieces in my collection, I love these more every time I see them. While I take my role as animation historian and caretaker very seriously, it's the joy of collecting that keeps me going!

THUMPER

In December 2007 I was fortunate to acquire a cel of THUMPER from BAMBI. This little guy is such a charmer!

The cel was released in the 1940s through the Courvoisier Gallery program. It has the official WDP stamp in the lower right corner (Walt Disney Productions).

As was the practice at the time, the cel is laminated.

As a later Courvoisier release, it has a typically uninspired background. The early Courvoisier backgrounds were actually created by artists at Disney Studios and were more elaborate. Later releases like this one were prepared by art students in the San Francisco area, where Courvoisier was located.

The original moment in the movie included Thumper's family and looked like this:

I digitally re-created the entire original pan background:

I'm not sure if or when I might change the setup to match the film. For the moment, I am enjoying the simple vintage Courvoisier presentation.

DOC: Snow White

"Doc" from SNOW WHITE, playing the Swanette, is the latest addition to my cel collection, and arguably the prize of my collection. It is in the in best condition of all the SNOW WHITE cels I have ever seen. With the exception of residual tape marks on the outer edges, it is pristine. Most cels this old are very badly rippled and warped (the cel material shrinks with age). There is almost no rippling, just a tiny bit around the edges and no yellowing at all. The paint is original and flawless.

Also very unusual is the fact that this cel is untrimmed. Completely original and intact! (Note the registration holes at the bottom.)

In the film, the strings are animated. Two strings have been inked on the cel, and there is just a touch of airbrushing which brings a rosy glow to Doc's cheeks. This leads me to believe that the cel was prepared for release through the Courvoisier Galleries, but was "liberated" just before the usual trimming and setup. As the cel is so perfect, my guess is that this was taped to a board and stored away for most of the last seventy years. Here's a scanned close-up of the Doc cel:

I digitally created the key master background. As usual, the B/G makes the piece. The cel is magnificent, but with the key B/G there's no doubt this is a monumental piece of historic Disney art.

I love this movie, and to add this particularly fine cel to my collection is a thrill and a half!