Jan 28, 2021 - Sale 2556

Sale 2556 - Lot 43

Price Realized: $ 2,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
MAURICE SENDAK (1928-2012)
Dorothy's house. Concept illustration for the Walt Disney Pictures/Silver Screen Partners production of Return To Oz, 1985. Graphite on onion skin with some extended sketching onto stiff white backing paper, to which it is taped. 305x395 mm; 12x15 1/2 inches (onion skin); 13 1/2x17 inches (the full sheet). Inscribed and signed in lower right image "To Lynn [Caponera] - Maurice, Oct '82." A few indecipherable notations in upper right margin.

Provenance: Gifted by Sendak to Lynn Caponera; thence to private collection.

A fascinating and unique survival of this unrealized Sendak/Wizard of Oz/Disney collaboration. Sendak was originally asked by Disney Productions to help design a sequel to MGM's classic, but the plans eventually fell through and another creative team was hired to complete the project. He created one publicity poster for Return to Oz, which was printed, but only two other known images exist, both of which are in private collections.

Sendak eventually gifted this intricate, detailed vision of Dorothy's Kansas house to his close friend, caretaker, and Executor of his estate, Lynn Caponera.