Chuck Redux

A Couple of Fine Lines: "Debonair" & "Au Contraire"

 

From the hand of master animator and director, Eric Goldberg ("Looney Tunes: Back in Action!", "The Princess and the Frog") the Chuck Jones Galleries are pleased to present this exquisite pair of fine art serigraphs on paper.  Goldberg's innovative take on the classic characters immortalized by the legendary Chuck Jones strikes a balance between the classical world of fine art and the delightfully zany world of the animated film.  

 

Hand-cut, hand-pulled and printed at one of America's premier serigraph workshops, "Debonair" (Bugs Bunny) and "Au Contraire" (Daffy Duck) represent the acme of this centuries-old printing process.   Goldberg's beautifully rendered ink line has been carefully reproduced in an edition of 150 (18" x 10" printed on archival cotton rag paper) with 25 Artist Proofs (30.5" x 18" printed on fine hand-made Japanese rice paper.) 

Call today for more information and to reserve your "Debonair" & "Au Contraire" for your collection.  Also available online by clicking here.

 

Notes on "Watership Down"

Watership Down

In 1973, Richard Adams’ acclaimed novel Watership Down sold over 30 million copies.  Epic in scope and human in detail, the band of intrepid rabbits led by Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig strike out on an adventure in search of a new home.

Original production cels (gouache on acetate) on original matching background layout (mixed media on paper.)

 
In 1978, famed producer and writer, Martin Rosen (Women in Love) brought to the silver screen the much loved story of this group of rabbits.  Conceived, written and produced by Mr. Rosen, Watership Down the animated film was met with tremendous critical and audience praise.  (Four-time Academy Award-winning animators Faith and John Hubley [Moonbird, The Story of an *] developed and designed the opening fable sequence.)

Original production cel set-up (gouache on acetate) for the opening sequence of "Watership Down" designed and animated by John and Faith Hubley. 

Original production cel (gouache on acetate) from the opening sequence of "Watership Down". 

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times said of the film, “An epic told with elegance, wit and persuasive detail.  It is lyrical, literal, very exciting, often very funny and entirely enchanting.  As it is the best scripted, so it must surely be the best acted animation feature of all.”

Original concept art, mixed media on paper and acetate, for "Watership Down."

What is it about?  A city-state is doomed.  Cassandra-like, a visionary rabbit (Fiver) prophesies the coming calamity.  Together with a small but resolute band of fellows, he sets off for safety and some dimly apprehended place that he has seen in his dreams.  The little band travels across an immense landscape, meeting with strange and fearful adventures on its way.  Such a journey Odysseus made—and the comparison is not inapt.  This great adventure finds its ultimate fulfillment on Watership Down where, after winning battles and surviving harrowing ordeals, harmony is at last established and the future is assured.

Original layout drawing, graphite and colored pencil on 12 field animation paper.

Original production cel (gouache on acetate) with, from left, Silver, Pipkin, Fiver and Bigwig.

Such noted actors as John Hurt (Hazel,) Sir Ralph Richardson (Chief Rabbit,) Zero Mostel (Kehaar the seagull,) Denholm Elliott (Cowslip) and Nigel Hawthorne (Campion) provided the voice characterizations.  Art Garfunkel’s lyrical single “Bright Eyes,” from the soundtrack became the second biggest selling single in British recording history at the time.

Original production cel (gouache on acetate) with photo-reproduced background with, from left, Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig and Blackberry.

“Watership Down is one of the best animated films since the heyday of Disney…the story seems to have slipped easily and delightfully on to the screen...the film is remarkably beautiful to look at.” –Financial Times, London, U.K.  

 

Chuck Jones: No Barking

NO BARKING

Considered by some critics and authors to be one of Chuck Jones’ minor masterpieces, No Barking took its bow (-wow) in theaters February 27, 1954.  Starring the nervous scavenger of love, food and affection, Claude Cat, and the irrepressible Frisky Puppy, it details Claude’s life’s pitfalls and pratfalls, highlights and lowlifes.  Making his only cameo appearance in a career that began in 1942 with his début in Bob Clampett’s A Tale of Two Kitties is that blue-eyed avian avenger, Tweety Bird. 

Tweety Bird was first painted pink (until 1945’s A Gruesome Twosome, when one of the cats calls him ‘a naked genius’ tipping off the censors…) and starred in over forty cartoons at last count, including the 1947 Oscar-winner, Tweetie Pie (begun by Clampett and steered to Oscar glory by I. Freleng after Clampett’s departure from Warner Bros.  Spellings of Tweety/Tweetie vary from publication to publication and from film to film.)

Cameo appearances by stars have a long tradition in the film industry and are one of the delights of the movie-going public.  As unexpected as it is to see Tweety Bird in a Chuck Jones cartoon, it is that very surprise that tickles the viewing audience and creates a memorable film experience.  And not only does Tweety make a cameo appearance, he also utters, that by then ubiquitous catch phrase, “I tawt I taw a puddy tat!” as Claude Cat goes sailing past him to the wide blue beyond.

 Uniquely animated by the very talented Ken Harris, No Barking also was graced with the layouts of Maurice Noble, story by Michael Maltese and backgrounds by Philip DeGuard.  Mel Blanc provided the voices with musical direction and orchestrations by Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn (musical theme: “Little Dog Gone”.)

Chuck Jones: Pussyfoot 1951

PUSSYFOOT 1951

Pussyfoot it may be to millions of fans, but to Chuck Jones Pussyfoot had no permanent name, “…call [him] Everykitten.”   Jones continues, “All the kitten had was the ability to love, so drawing him was comparatively simple.  A kitten’s ears are much bigger in relation to the face than an adult cat’s, and as in all young mammals, his forehead is very high.  I wanted him to be so darling that you feel you must pick him up and hug him, which is precisely what I wanted Marc Anthony to want to do.”

Pussyfoot first appeared in the short animated film, Feed the Kitty, directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese.  It bowed (and me-owed) in theaters nationwide on February 2, 1952.  Robert Gribbroek was the animator and Philip DeGuard created the backgrounds.  Carl Stalling was the musical director and with Bea Benaderet as the voice of Marc Anthony’s mistress.

 

Pussyfoot 1951 is based upon one of two existing model sheets, dated a year apart (1950 and 1951.)  Although many people work on the creation of an animated film, the characters are always consistent in their delineation because each person drawing them had the character model sheet with different poses of the character on it before him.  Directors often provided more specific guides as well.  Chuck Jones, for instance, provided several hundred key layout drawings as well as drawing the model sheets himself. 

Pussyfoot 1951 has been created as a 16 field cel and in an edition of 100 (with 40 Familial Proofs and 20 Hors de Commerce.)  It bears the authorized signature mark of Chuck Jones and the holographic seal of Linda Jones Enterprises. 

Filmography for Pussyfoot, all directed by Chuck Jones:

• Feed the Kitty (1952)

• Kiss Me Cat (1953)

• Feline Frame Up (1954)

• Cat Feud (1958)

• Another Froggy Evening

  (cameo, 1995)

Chuck Jones: Bewitched Bunny 1954

BEWITCHED BUNNY 1954, a Golden Age Edition          

The Warner Bros. version of Witch Hazel (first voiced by Bea Benaderet and then in subsequent appearances, to much acclaim, by June Foray) bowed in theaters nationwide on July 24, 1954 in the Chuck Jones directed Bewitched Bunny.  Borrowing liberally from the Brothers Grimm tale of Hansel and Gretel (as well as Snow White), Bewitched Bunny continues Jones’ experimentation and innovation in character and scenic design.  Using simple, yet elegant, lines to delineate the complexities of character through visual punnery (Hazel’s head ends at the brim of her hat, who can forget those hairpins,) Jones confidently ups the madcap silliness quotient and verbal swordplay between Bugs and Witch Hazel*.  

His unit composed of such stalwart talent as Mike Maltese, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris, Ben Washam and the inimitable Maurice Noble, were equally up to the challenge of developing the stylistic and artistic re-imagining of the animated short film.  Since the release of The Dover Boys in 1942, Jones had been noted, and often imitated, for his groundbreaking and imaginative use of shape, color and movement. 

“When I began thinking about the character of Witch Hazel, I first tried to imagine what the witches in Macbeth would look like, and I decided that they were big.  Witches also have hats, and Hazel has hers.  It is an odd one.  I wanted the hat to be shapeless and insubstantial, looking as if it might explode in a cloud of dust at any moment…Her clothes cover her body completely, and I assume that she is the same shape as the outfit she is wearing.  When she went out, she put on bloomers and high-heeled shoes, which I wanted to look like a drawing rather than a three-dimensional form.”

---Chuck Jones in Chuck Reducks, Drawing From the Fun Side of Life

 

Bewitched Bunny, created from an original Chuck Jones layout drawing for the film, is the first in a series of Golden Age Editions art from Chuck Jones that will celebrate, in limited edition and a variety of media, cartoons created by Jones during the 1950s.  Estate signed in gold ink along with the hand signature of June Foray, this edition features a background created from an original used in the production of Bewitched Bunny. 

*Witch Hazel is the name of a North American shrub from which a medicinal brew and an alcohol-based rub is made. 

Chuck Jones: June Groom

Here Comes the Groom

Twenty years after the release of “Bugs & Bride ”, this Chuck Jones limited edition hand-painted animation cel is the fifth image he created celebrating the institution of marriage.  This time around, Bugs’ beloved has swept our intrepid rabbit off his feet as they begin their new life together in the 21^st century.  Celebrate with them as they head for their honeymoon suite at the Coachella Valley Carrot Festival Resort and Spa!

The line drawing for this limited edition was created by Chuck Jones and has been serigraphically transferred to an acetate sheet.  Meticulously hand-painted by expert cel painters, each of these cels are authenticated by the official Chuck Jones signature-mark.  As was true of the very first “Bugs & Bride”, this cel is accompanied by a hand-cut, brocade wallpaper background.*

*In 1977, with the release of the very first limited edition hand-painted animation cel, “Duck Dodgers Group”, by Chuck Jones, Linda Jones Clough began to create the backgrounds which accompanied them.  These backgrounds, many collaged and hand-painted, reinforced the essence of Chuck Jones’ character drawings.

Sometimes using pantone paper and wallpaper at other times, Linda cut, glued, heat-sealed and painted each of the backgrounds for every example in an edition for nearly eight years.  Her backgrounds were the perfect stages for the antics of the drawings created by her father.  The release of “Here Comes the Groom” and   “Carrot Cake” heralds the return of these special backgrounds. 

Chuck Jones & Cats (not the musical...)

THE CAT PORTFOLIO

The cat has been domesticated since ancient times.  Of the genus Felis, the common (and as we’ll discover, uncommon) house cat, Felix Sylvestri (wherever did those cat names come from?), has been the visual inspiration for untold centuries of artists, from the tombs of the Pharaohs to contemporary society.   For Chuck Jones it began with one cat.   

Johnson entered the Jones household one foggy morning in 1918, carefully picking his way through the sand at Balboa, to stand looking up at their home requesting admission.  “He moved into our house that morning, bag and baggage.  The bag was that cat bag all cats live in, one of the few characteristics he shared with other cats.  He sat fat and walked thin like other cats, but the resemblance to other cats stopped there,” reminisces Chuck Jones in his autobiography, Chuck Amuck.  “His baggage was what appeared to be a very old, very used tongue depressor, fastened securely about his neck…bearing the crude inscription…Johnson.”

Chuck Jones recalls that morning because he realized that it marked a turning point in his perception   of character and one of the most important lessons of animation: individuality.  Johnson demonstrated for Jones that it is the individual, the oddity and peculiarity of character that counts.  In response to the question, “Why do animated cartoonists use animals?” Jones has said that it is easier and more believable to humanize animals than to humanize humans. 

“The Cat Portfolio” is a limited edition collection of 9 cats drawn by Chuck Jones over a 50-year period.  The ten fine art reproductions on paper (one cat is seen in x-ray as well) that comprise the portfolio are led off by a drawing of Johnson, jauntily wearing three-quarters of a grapefruit rind on his head like a space helmet.  “On such occasions he seemed to enjoy this raffish adornment and would saunter out onto the sand, often with only one eye visible under the overhang, a curious sight to many people, a delight to our family, and a source of sheer terror to small dogs and old ladies,” Jones continues in his autobiography.  And if that weren’t enough, Johnson liked to swim in the ocean too.  

5 Ways to Build an Entertaining Art Collection (and not get hit by a bus)

They say you can take the New Yorker out of New York, but you can’t make them drive.  In the case of our very own, Joel Shapiro (sales manager at the San Diego Chuck Jones Gallery,) no truer words were ever spoken.  A graduate of Baruch College (CUNY,) he’s been an integral part of our gallery since 1997.  Joel, who really doesn’t drive (imagine living in SoCal and not driving!) has made San Diego his own; by trolleys, by walking; to the beach, to the cinema and through the search for the perfect pizza (still unfound, but the research, the research!)

Joel’s been collecting art for nearly 30 years and agreed to share with us his secrets for building and maintaining a collection of film-related art.  His passion and deep appreciation for the artists who create animated films, cinema campaigns and related artistic endeavors is apparent in his collection.  Filling his pristine apartment from floor to ceiling, each work is lovingly cared for, exquisitely displayed and fondly remembered. 

Collecting Is Personal

• A collection is composed of memories—your memories.  Select each work because it means something to you.  In the case of animation art, let its action, attitude and personality be the key to your desire to own it.

• Classic moments in animation create collections.  Whether it’s Bugs Bunny vs. Marvin Martian or Snow White singing at the Wishing Well—a classic moment will always engage the viewer

  "Herr Loves Me, Hare Loves Me Not" Hand-painted cel art edition

• Let your collection evolve: Over the years, Joel has allowed his collection to grow by letting the new, the unusual, and the unique spark his imagination and consequently his collection has developed a life all its own.  There is a core collection, but not unlike a tree with branches there is many a direction to yet explore.
• Collect art that is in the present.  It is as important today as it was when it was made; whether 5 years ago or 50 years ago it still has something to say.  Art collecting is a comment on the human condition.  It makes you laugh, it makes you cry—it is nostalgic and futuristic. 
• Allow it to make you feel like a kid.  A collection is a reflection of your personality.  It is your heritage and your legacy.  There is an innocence associated with the art Joel collects that draws on his memories of more simple pleasures—Saturday mornings in front of the TV—trips to the movie theater with his family—that is inspirational. 

"Win a Few, Lose a Few" Original Watercolor by Chuck Jones

The “How Not to Get Hit by a Bus” Part

• If you insist on walking everywhere, by all means look both ways before stepping off the curb.  Note to San Diego bus drivers:  Please be on the lookout for our Joel, picture attached.  (By the way, Joel survived, but the bus looked the worse for wear…)