Friday, September 2, 2011

"The Band Concert" in Good Housekeeping

One afternoon late in 1987, I went to an exhibition of extraordinary Walt Disney Studios magazine artwork at Alexander Gallery in New York. Each framed piece was a set of drawings retelling the story of a new Disney cartoon short. They had been published each month for some years in the magazine Good Housekeeping and were apparently new to the market.

The illustrations were just beautiful, but what I remember most vividly was how surprised I was at how expensive these fine drawings were. They were individually custom-matted and framed. At the time, it was supposed that all the surviving drawings from this series were on display in the gallery, but that turned out not to be the case.

Here's one set of illustrations I didn't see that day. Whether Disney subsequently found and released them from their archives I don't know. Tom Wood's drawings for Disney's "The Band Concert" (1935) are really top notch, as befits a truly top notch animated cartoon!

2011 February Dallas Signature Vintage Comics & Comic Art Auction #7030

Sold for:	$20,315.00 (includes BP ) Bid Source: HA.com/Live

Auction Ended On:	Feb 25, 2011
Item Activity:	16 Internet/mail/phone bidders

Tom Wood The Band Concert Walt Disney Illustration Original Art (Good Housekeeping, 1935). While Heritage has been privileged to offer about 30 Good Housekeeping sequences over the years, this is one of the earliest (the feature began in April 1934 and this is the tenth one) we've offered, ties in with the most significant cartoon, and is one of the most colorful and fun! This is also Mickey Mouse's first Good Housekeeping appearance.
This is probably the first piece of finished "Band Concert" art to see print. It was featured in the January 1935 issue of Good Housekeeping(the cartoon short was released in February 1935), and it's been well-documented that Tom Wood based his art on the storyboards of a given cartoon.
This promotes what would be the first theatrical Mickey Mouse cartoon in color, The Band Concert. Often considered one of the very best Disney cartoons of all time, this delightful tale of Mickey's rag-tag team of musicians gets the full Tom Wood treatment here, with wonderful results. The art is in ink and watercolor, in connected segments that have an approximate image size of 18" x 26", and the art, along with a copy of the text, has been professionally linen-matted and Plexiglas framed to an overall size of 28.25" x 36.5". There is some very minor paper aging to several of the connected segments, leaving the art in Very Good condition. What a perfect item to go along with The Band Concert animation cel, offered elsewhere in this auction! From the Kerby Confer Collection.

Wood, Tom: Tom Wood came to Disney Studios in 1932 from his position as a Los Angeles daily newspaper artist. He worked at the Studio as publicity artist, assumed primary responsibility for the monthly Good Housekeeping page as well as the creation of publicity stills for the theater, until his untimely death in 1940.