Disney Carrier Gouache Painting, ca. 1942
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GUEST:
I was walking up the street in Manhattan...
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
...as I passed a shop, an antique shop, this was in the window.
APPRAISER:
Cool.
GUEST:
And when I walked in, I talked to the gal. She said there was 12 of them. These are all original Walt Disney.So she said he did one a month for a year. And they were for the war effort. And so I was, had been in the Navy, had been in one of these things, and I saw that and I said, "Well, I definitely want to buy that. Well, I'd like to buy all of them." And she said, "Two of them are already sold." And I said-- well, I wind up buying this one. (chuckles) Took it home, and it's been… this is probably in 1980, give or take. My wife and I have tried to figure out what it is, who it is. I don't have any paperwork. I'm sure they gave it to me.
APPRAISER:
So, first of all, it's a watercolor gouache. Gouache is a fancy name for an opaque type of water-based paint. And Disney did a lot of things for the war effort. They did posters, they did pamphlets, a lot of, uh, material to support the war effort. They also designed a lot of Air Force insignia. So you see
a lot of Donald Ducks.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
Were you a pilot in the Navy?
GUEST:
I was.
APPRAISER:
Okay, great. So, you know, those, those insignias were really important...
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
...to the, to the folks who are involved. And Disney had a lot of the characters supporting in the, in the war effort. This is interesting because it's got a lot of iconography going on. We have an aircraft carrier, right?
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And then we have this animated character flying off and then we have this wonderful airplane silhouette. This guy is Pedro. And Pedro was featured in a 1942 film called Saludos Amigos. Pedro was the hero of the story, kind of like the airplane analogy of The Little Engine That Could.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
His job in the movie was a mail carrier. And there's his mail satchel there. Right, so carrier, carrier...
GUEST:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, carrier.
APPRAISER:
And this plane, it's a transport plane. It's all connecting to the concept of carrying stuff, and most likely, about carrying mail. Pedro appeared in this feature film, in 1942, when it was released. He also had a cameo in "Roger Rabbit" (chuckling) later on, many years later. It's possible that it was a calendar situation, but I don't know that for sure. Or it's possible it was just part of some other promotion where there were 12 of these and that's how many they, they promised to do in a year. This might have been for a series of drawings or studies that never went anywhere. Being rare doesn't always make it more valuable.
GUEST:
Interesting.
APPRAISER:
Yeah. If it was out in the public domain, it'd be, "Oh, the carrier! You've got the carrier picture." At this time, 19-1940s, Disney had already become a major brand. And all the artists who worked for Disney were allowed to sign his name. And so this is more than just a signature. It's really, at this point, Disney's logo type, so.
GUEST:
Like I noticed that.
APPRAISER:
Exactly, copyright.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
So all this is telling you that this is copyright property be-- that belongs to Disney. So this was not in Disney's– Walt Disney's hand. It's most certainly one of the many artists that work for Disney. Walt Disney himself didn't do a lot at this time of making original art. He's busy, you know, running, you know, the Disney business. So that doesn't detract from the significance of, of the piece or the connection to Disney and the connection to the war effort. It's still an amazing graphic. Back when you were walking down the street, and you saw it in the window, what did you end up paying for it?
GUEST:
$1,100.
APPRAISER:
$1,100, okay. Not bad. That's a lot of money, though, back in the day, right?
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
The market for things Disney is, is still very strong. It's, it's an amazing brand. We're looking at auction, conservatively, $5,000 to $7,000.
GUEST:
Okay, well, now I know. I mean I've always wondered, because they told me it was Walt Disney who did it...
APPRAISER:
Right.
GUEST:
...and who signed it, and I could never get an answer one way or the other from anybody. So it's, it's at least nice to know.
APPRAISER:
Never buy the story, buy the piece, right? (chuckling)
GUEST:
Exactly.
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