Who Framed Roger Rabbit?: Original Movie Art from the Disney Classic!
Saturday, March 14, 2020 - Saturday, June 26, 2021
Why I Collect Art from Roger Rabbit
Shortly after "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" was released in 1988 to rave reviews --and went on to win four Academy Awards -- Disney decided to capitalize on the renewed interest in animation by engaging Sotheby’s in New York in 1989 to auction off a selection of 560 cels from the movie.
At the time, collecting animation cels from earlier cartoons was a niche hobby; the art was only available through secondary markets and had not been offered by a major auction house before. The Sotheby auction was a blockbuster, which led Disney to start distributing animation art through their own Disney Stores and independent animation galleries that had sprung up throughout the country.
I bought my first Roger Rabbit cel through an East Coast animation gallery in 1990. Although the selling prices for the Sotheby Roger Rabbit cels had skyrocketed due to the demand, the pricing had somewhat stabilized and was more affordable by the early ‘90s. By then Disney had created a formal animation distribution program and
I was able to track down specific images from specific scenes, which had never been a possibility before.
And as my collection grew, so did my desire to find cels of many of the secondary characters as well (like the Bullets, Lena Hyena, the Weasels, etc.), which were typically not as popular and didn’t appear on the screen for long. Along the way I discovered and began to appreciate more and more about the process of animation—the concept and model drawings that had to be created before production started, the character drawings that translated into cels, the beautiful background illustrations were as inspiring as the animation itself, and of course the glorious full-color cels.
And behind the animation were a number of backstories that were equally captivating, including how several earlier drafts of the film had been rejected by Disney, how Richard Williams had completely redesigned the look of the characters when he took over as animation director, how the voice artists had been recast several times (including, at one time, Pee Wee Herman as Roger Rabbit), and all the visual “tricks” used to assist the live-action characters when interacting with the animated ones.
It was all fascinating to me, and it remains so today.
Kristi and I have spent the last 20+ years growing our collection and we are thrilled to share it with you. We hope adults and children alike enjoy what we’ve assembled and that it brings back many of the same memories to you that we’ve cherished.
But most importantly, we hope it helps you appreciate the brilliant work of the animators, artists, actors, voice actors, directors and all of those behind the scenes in making this movie, because they are the ones who brought these characters to life.
So please…Enjoy!
Bill Heeter, Collector/Lender
Image:
Ron Dias (1937-2013)
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
Publicity Cel
c.1988
The Hilbert Collection
Shortly after "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" was released in 1988 to rave reviews --and went on to win four Academy Awards -- Disney decided to capitalize on the renewed interest in animation by engaging Sotheby’s in New York in 1989 to auction off a selection of 560 cels from the movie.
At the time, collecting animation cels from earlier cartoons was a niche hobby; the art was only available through secondary markets and had not been offered by a major auction house before. The Sotheby auction was a blockbuster, which led Disney to start distributing animation art through their own Disney Stores and independent animation galleries that had sprung up throughout the country.
I bought my first Roger Rabbit cel through an East Coast animation gallery in 1990. Although the selling prices for the Sotheby Roger Rabbit cels had skyrocketed due to the demand, the pricing had somewhat stabilized and was more affordable by the early ‘90s. By then Disney had created a formal animation distribution program and
I was able to track down specific images from specific scenes, which had never been a possibility before.
And as my collection grew, so did my desire to find cels of many of the secondary characters as well (like the Bullets, Lena Hyena, the Weasels, etc.), which were typically not as popular and didn’t appear on the screen for long. Along the way I discovered and began to appreciate more and more about the process of animation—the concept and model drawings that had to be created before production started, the character drawings that translated into cels, the beautiful background illustrations were as inspiring as the animation itself, and of course the glorious full-color cels.
And behind the animation were a number of backstories that were equally captivating, including how several earlier drafts of the film had been rejected by Disney, how Richard Williams had completely redesigned the look of the characters when he took over as animation director, how the voice artists had been recast several times (including, at one time, Pee Wee Herman as Roger Rabbit), and all the visual “tricks” used to assist the live-action characters when interacting with the animated ones.
It was all fascinating to me, and it remains so today.
Kristi and I have spent the last 20+ years growing our collection and we are thrilled to share it with you. We hope adults and children alike enjoy what we’ve assembled and that it brings back many of the same memories to you that we’ve cherished.
But most importantly, we hope it helps you appreciate the brilliant work of the animators, artists, actors, voice actors, directors and all of those behind the scenes in making this movie, because they are the ones who brought these characters to life.
So please…Enjoy!
Bill Heeter, Collector/Lender
Image:
Ron Dias (1937-2013)
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
Publicity Cel
c.1988
The Hilbert Collection