Presenting more than 1,500 lots, Heritage Auctions’ Celebrating 100 Years Of Disney: 1923–2023 took place June 23-26 and resulted in an overall record-setting animation art auction that brought $4,874,435 with a 100% sell-through rate. It was the most successful Animation Art auction ever held, topping Heritage’s August 2021 $4.5 million event. Heritage now has held all top five of the largest Animation Art auctions ever.
Works from Walt’s favorite animators and artists shattered their estimates, with record prices realized for studio legends Mary Blair, Eyvind Earle, Peter Ellenshaw and Steamboat Willie’s Ub Iwerks. The wide-ranging auction spanned Disney’s entire animation history and included production cels, animation drawings, concept art, storyboards, Disney book art and Disney fine art.
“It is so satisfying to see this great art form leap to new heights,” says Jim Lentz, Heritage’s Vice President of Animation and Anime Art. “Seeing such strong sales from Disney’s Golden Age right through to the Disney Renaissance makes this 100 Years of Disney landmark auction so rewarding.”
The event walked Disney collectors, connoisseurs and fans from 1928’s Steamboat Willie, through its Golden Age shaped by iconic features like Cinderella (featuring the largest single collection of original animation and fine art from this 1950 classic), Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, and into its Renaissance with gems like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
In fact, the highest-priced lot of the event and a record breaker for a Disney artist goes to Mary Blair, who worked for the company for nearly two decades starting in the 1940s. Blair is a favorite of collectors, so it’s no surprise that Heritage set a new auction record for the artist/animator with her 1950 concept painting for Cinderella featuring the would-be princess waving goodbye to her Fairy Godmother as she speeds off to the ball in a transformed coach. The hammer came down at $90,000. (Heritage sold a Blair concept painting for It’s a Small World for $72,000 in 2021 and a Blair production cel from Alice in Wonderland for $78,000 in 2014.)
For this anniversary event, Blair’s work made up six of the top 10 lots sold. Blair’s concept/color key painting from Cinderella of the Duke and princess in a glass-slipper moment sold for $57,600, and her concept painting from Alice in Wonderland (featuring some mushrooms swaying in the moonlight) sold for $48,000. Her three other artworks amongst the top sellers include two others from Alice (concept painting, $43,200) and Cinderella (color/key painting, $38,400) and Blair’s concept painting from Peter Pan of a swordfight between Peter and Captain Hook, which sold for $38,400.
Another Disney artist set a new personal record, as a piece by Eyvind Earle was the second highest-grossing artwork in the auction: A 1959 concept painting for Sleeping Beauty depicting Aurora deep in slumber brought $66,000. Another auction top 10 for Earle was his Sleeping Beauty concept painting of Prince Phillip, Samson and Maleficent as a dragon (“Now shall you deal with me, O Prince. And all the powers of hell!”); it sold for $43,200.
Steamboat Willie, released in black and white in 1928, is one of the first cartoons with synchronized sound and the first glimpse wider audiences got of Mickey Mouse — a classic not only of the Disney canon but all of animation art and the history of cinema. Directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, who animated the short, this anniversary auction landed the artist a record: his Steamboat Willie animation drawing acts as a charming portrait of the famous mouse in his earliest incarnation. It sold for $24,000.
Legendary artist Peter Ellenshaw saw an auction record in this event for his Disney work with his 1954 concept painting for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Acrylic on board and painted only a year after Ellenshaw moved to the States from his home in London, it depicts Captain Nemo’s Nautilus submarine near the island of Vulcania. It sold for $21,600.
Other notable and top lots in the auction include a pan-sized cel of Maleficent as a dragon in Sleeping Beauty, attributed to top Disney artists, which sold for $45,600; and a set of preliminary roughs and storyboard drawings from Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974) by artist Ted Berman, which sold for $38,400. This sequence depicts the rambunctious Tigger as he grapples with an adventure in tree climbing: “Well, Tigger, your bouncing really got you into trouble this time!”
Check out all the results from this auction and see more of Heritage Auction’s animation artwork at comics.ha.com.
