?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
WARD KIMBALL (1914-2002) Three Caballeros and Alice in Wonderland Color Sketch. Specialty illustration, 1987. Ink and wax crayon over graphite on paper. 11 x 8 1/2 inches. Signed and inscribed, "Greetings to Bob from Ward Kimball, 1987."
This is an original color sketch by the inimitable Disney artist Ward Kimball made for a fan in 1987, featuring characters from some of his most memorable sequences: the Mad Hatter and March Hare from the Mad Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland (1950), and Donald Duck, Jose Carioca, and Panchito Pistoles from The Three Caballeros (1943). The relentlessly creative and irreverent Kimball considered his work on the title song for The Three Caballeros one of his proudest accomplishments, and the anarchic Mad Hatter and March Hare are arguably extensions of his own wild personality. In spite of this, he very rarely drew sketches of these characters for fans.
In keeping with other Kimball sketches of the time, the sketch is peppered with quirky bits of commentary, and this one features the artist's thumbprint self portrait (with Mickey Mouse ears).
Ward Kimball was a powerhouse of creativity and innovation for decades at the Disney Studios. Aside from the characters in this sketch, Kimball brought to life Jiminy Cricket, the Crows in Dumbo, Pecos Bill, Jaq and Gus the mice and Lucifer the cat in Cinderella, as well as directing such groundbreaking, highly stylized films as Melody, Toot, Whilstle, Plunk, and Boom, and Mars and Beyond (to name just some of his many contributions to the studio). Walt Disney, who was rarely forthcoming with praise, once said of Kimball: "Ward is one man who works for me I am willing to call a genius. He can do anything he wants to do."
