Gustaf Tenggren Snow White Watercolor, ca. 1937
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GUEST:
I think it's a watercolor painting of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that my great-grandfather got from a client. He was an advertiser in New York years ago, and it's been in the family ever since.
APPRAISER:
What I can tell you?
GUEST:
Well, is it a watercolor painting? Is it an original? I think it is. There are stickers on the back that say it's before the time of the movie.
APPRAISER:
Number one, it is an original. Number two, it is a watercolor. It's actually ink and watercolor. And it's a well-known artist by the name of Gustaf Tenggren.
GUEST:
Oh, you know who it is. Oh, that's great.
APPRAISER:
Yes. He was born in Sweden, studied art, where he specialized in, in the Swedish zeitgeist of gnomes and elves, so that was one of his passions. He was born in 1896, which was the heyday of one of his major inspirations, who was Arthur Rackham. Arthur Rackham also was famous for fantasy and did Grimm's Fairy Tales and Peter Pan, all in that early 20th century. Tenggren was hired by the Disney studio to come out and work when they were beginning to prepare Snow White, which was the very first full-length animated film. It was released in 1937. This artwork by Tenggren was being used as, as early as 1936. It was a long process to put together this movie. Obviously, when you're doing dwarves, this would be a perfect person to inspire the art. So he did some of the very original art that inspired the artwork for the movie. And you'll notice that it's the seven dwarfs for sure. There's Dopey, the whole gang, but when they went into animation, they obviously smoothed them out, which was much easier to paint.
GUEST:
Sure.
APPRAISER:
Tenggren, eventually-- after he worked on Pinocchio, he worked on a couple of others for Disney-- eventually, I think he ended up in New York and doing some advertising things. And then he left all this, this wonderful, fine, Arthur Rackham work, to work on Little Golden Books.
GUEST:
Oh, really?
APPRAISER:
And he's famous as a Little Golden Book artist. Which, I mean, it's so different, it's absolute amazing. So he has those two fames. It's interesting that you have the advertising sticker on the back, that says, "Coming Soon," because after doing the artwork that inspired the movie, he did later artwork that was used in posters. It is a wonderful thing. It's one of a kind. Great artist, great story. A conservative auction estimate would be in the $20,000 to $25,000 range.
GUEST:
What? For real? $20,000 to $25,000?
APPRAISER:
It's a treasure.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
I have to say, I went that way, too.
GUEST:
Wow, I always loved it, but I had no idea. I mean, it was just something through the family. It was something that reminds me of my great-grandfather.
APPRAISER:
Now you can love it more.
GUEST:
Yeah, wow.
APPRAISER:
You can love it a lot more. I can't tell you how excited I was to see it and so glad you brought it to me.
GUEST:
You have a poker face. (both laughing) Well, thank you so much.
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