Animation art is serious business:

Cels still sell, but today's animation art market is open for interpretation--and events, lots of events.

Galleries and publishers agree that demand for hand-painted celluloids (cels) is yielding to a greater demand for interpretive and illustrative fine-art originals and reproductions. The high-energy promotional events are also important ingredients for remaining successful in a highly competitive market with a limited, yet loyal, collector base.

Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary

Nearly two decades have passed since Disney's last "traditionally" animated film ("The Little Mermaid," 1989), says Heidi Leigh, owner of Animazing Gallery in New York's SoHo neighborhood.

Leigh says animation art has evolved into the world of CGI (computer-generated imagery). The evolution has caused Animazing to change from an exclusive animation art gallery destination to a store that combines traditional animation cels, ranging in price up to $40,000 for a "Lady and the Tramp" cel, to "fine art that is fun," such as interpretive "Peanuts" paintings by Tom Everhart and the "Secret Art" of Dr. Seuss and 3-D artist David Kracov.

"Even with all the computer-generated art, a great majority of concept, layout and story board art is still done by hand," says Sean McLain, co-president of Acme Archives, Burbank, CA. "As a result of this move to computer graphic production, we have found a new type of artist evolving; an individual as talented with a [digitizing] tablet and software as they are with a brush and canvas." McLain says Acme will add to its Studio Fine Art Programs for Twentieth Century Fox, Cartoon Network and Lucasfilm, a new Walt Disney Studio Art Program, in 2007.

When Collectors Editions began its Disney Fine Art program in 2002, Helen Tu, Collectors Editions' director of national sales, remembers the reaction as being less than enthusiastic. Tu says at the time, animation art galleries didn't understand the market for paintings and giclees.

Today, Collectors Editions has about 50 Disney fine art galleries in 15 to 20 states with strong representation on both coasts. "What makes our program so successful is that unlike animation cels, which are locked into one scene and one moment in time, the viewer is seeing an image that is reminiscent of a scene as an artist's interpretation."