Animation Art Market

Market Watch recently had a good market review for animation art. According to sources within the article, animation art has seen a 20% increase each year for the past 5 years. Now that comes from a gallerist specializing in animation art, but there are other signs and indicators for the current strength of the market, specifically a growing interest from millennials.

Market Watch reports

Collectors with a taste for nostalgia, and satire, are breathing new life into the market for animation art.

Specialist dealers and some auction houses report steadily rising prices in recent years for many of the drawings, storyboards, backgrounds and hand-painted bits of celluloid, known as “cels,” used to create classic cartoons and animated features from “Snow White” to “The Simpsons.”

“Over the past five years, we have seen a 20% increase every year” in the number of buyers and the prices they are paying, says Mike Van Eaton, owner of Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks, Calif., which specializes in animation art. Some art from “The Little Mermaid,” a 1989 Disney DIS, +1.50%  release, has jumped to $2,000 from $500 just three years ago, says Van Eaton.

Millennials collect hand-painted ‘cels’ from early episodes of the TV show “The Simpsons.” A cel from one of the opening title scenes recently sold at Heritage Auctions for $3,585.

Many thought demand for animation art had petered out after a boom in the 1980s. But new generations of collectors have stepped in. Most of today’s collectors “want to buy back a piece of their childhood,” Van Eaton adds.

Desirable periods run the gamut from the 1920s, when animation shorts began, to the late 1990s, when studios producing animated films switched from hand-painted to digital images. Walt Disney Co.’s Pixar Animation Studios, responsible for such hits as “Toy Story,” was an early practitioner of digital animation. But while the occasional hand-drawn storyboard for a Pixar film will appear in collector circles, experts say they are rare and generally not for sale.

Art from more recent animated films and TV programs is attracting millennials, says Jim Lentz, director of animation art sales at the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. Millennials collect “concept” drawings used for TV shows such as “Family Guy” or hand-painted cels from early episodes of “The Simpsons,” Lentz says. Generation Xers, he says, prefer images from 1970s-era cartoons, such as “Super Friends” or “Scooby-Doo.”

There is plenty of material for buyers to choose from. A single minute of an early animated movie could involve as many as 1,200 individually painted images, first on paper or cardboard and then transferred onto sheets of celluloid that would be put under a camera. In addition, preliminary “concept” drawings could be used to identify how a character in the movie would look. Storyboards would guide artists on the expected course of action. Paintings used as backgrounds are sold as well.

Early Disney animated classics continue to be popular due in part to Disney’s careful stewardship of the films. “It has been the practice of Disney to regularly bring back its classic movies to theaters every seven years,” Van Eaton says of films such as “Snow White,” “Cinderella” and “The Little Mermaid.” And between releases, the films also are ubiquitously available thanks to DVDs, cable television, YouTube and Disney theme parks.

“They are with us every day,” says Van Eaton.

Recent highlights from auctions of Disney animation art, according to Lentz, include $33,460 paid for a single cel from the 1955 classic “Lady and the Tramp,” in which the two dogs share a spaghetti noodle (and end up meeting with their lips); also, $54,970 paid for a preliminary drawing from “Cinderella,” a 1950 release, showing Cinderella and her coach.

The drawing for “Cinderella” was by Mary Blair, a highly esteemed artist working for Disney at the time.

“Five years ago, I would have guessed that Mary Blair might have brought $5,000 to $6,000,” Van Eaton adds.

Collectors clamor for artwork from studios other than Disney as well. A painting of Bugs Bunny, the classic Warner Bros. character, by longtime Warner Bros. animator and director Chuck Jones, sold for $20,315 at Heritage Auctions in 2015, while a 1938 Paramount Picture poster for the Betty Boop animated film “Pudgy the Watchman” sold at Bonhams for $3,125.

It is not just the artist, title or studio that determines whether a piece of animation art has value. Other keys are the popularity of the characters shown, and their poses. For instance, images of the lesser-known dogs in “Lady and the Tramp” are not nearly as sought-after as images with the title characters.

Other factors that can influence higher values: who the previous owners were (ownership by the film’s studio or the artist’s family have greater cache than ownership by a private collector or fan), also whether the piece is signed, and by whom — possibly the artist, director or voice actor.

Walt Disney himself seemed to know there was a market for the production elements of his animated movies. Disney worked with the San Francisco-based Courvoisier Galleries back in the 1930s and ’40s to market and sell cels. Those Courvoisier cels now frequently appear at auction.

Source: Market Watch