DALLAS, TX.- “What we were in on, really, was the invention of animation.” -- Marc Davis

Great collectors keep themselves primed for the appearance of a Holy Grail, and in the Disney universe, significant works by the original animation and concept artists from Disney’s Golden Age fill that role. Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men” — the studio’s radically gifted core animators of the 1930s through the ’80s — brought us the apex of American storytelling and animation and set in motion the juggernaut Disney is today. One of the original Nine, California native Marc Davis (1913-2000) got his start on Snow White in 1935, and with his breathtaking draftsmanship went on to develop and animate some of the studio’s most iconic characters, including Tinker Bell, Maleficent, Aurora, and Cruella de Vil. The Disney Legend’s works are gorgeous, complex, good-natured, and some of the most collectible in Disney’s history. His later work on Disneyland and Walt Disney World brought to the growing parks the humor and light touch so needed to delight entire generations with an indelible Disney flair.

Davis’ multi-talented wife and collaborator, Alice Davis (1929-2022), also an official Disney Legend, was responsible for the meticulous and memorable costume designs for park attractions, among them Pirates of the Caribbean, Flight to the Moon, and notably the 1964-65 It's a Small World. As a couple in Los Angeles, Marc and Alice were generous hosts and mentors, and their collection of their own artworks makes up one of the most desirable troves of Disney material ever imagined. For the first time, Heritage introduces the collection to the public in its April 5-8 The Art of Disneyland - Featuring the Marc and Alice Davis Archive Signature ® Auction. The four-day extravaganza in Beverly Hills, encompassing more than 1800 surprising and significant offerings from Disney and Disney Parks history, is led by more than 500 pieces from the Marc and Alice Davis Archive, including concept artworks, Marc’s original paintings, personal correspondence rife with the original drawings and words from Marc, Alice, and other Disney greats they counted as close friends, including Mary Blair, Milt Kahl and more. Also featured: Heartfelt letters, Christmas cards and postcards Marc and Alice exchanged with fellow Disney legends that offer a window into the relationships that shaped their careers and animation history.

Proceeds go to the couple’s favorite charities and institutions, including the art department of Cal Arts, where, when it was still called Chouinard, Alice and Marc first met in an animation class he taught. This auction is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to honor a double legacy that has resonated with Disney fans and insiders alike for decades.

“When you went to their house, there was all of this artwork — wall to wall,” says Andreas Deja, supervising animator for the most memorable villains from Disney’s spectacular Renaissance — including Jafar from Aladdin, Scar from The Lion King, and Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Deja, also the principal animator of Mickey Mouse, is the author of the authoritative book The Nine Old Men and as his own career skyrocketed, counted the couple as close friends. “It is such great collection; it's hard not to feel emotional,” he says. “Marc considered himself an artist first. He would work for the studio Monday through Friday, and then on the weekends, he would make his own work. He was the only one [of the Disney animators] doing that.” And Marc Davis helped the young Deja understand how the animator’s job transcends the usual demands of a drawing. “Creating personalities on the screen through drawings is extremely difficult and only succeeds if the animator finds a way to express him- or herself personally,” says Deja. “As Marc Davis said, it is the ultimate art form, involving drawing, acting, music, dancing, and painting, all combined into one medium.”

To give you a few examples of the depth and breadth of highlights from the Davis Archive: Marc Davis' personal binder with 116 original production drawings of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfsis a rich piece of animation history. Most of these sketches are believed to be from Marc’s hand, and some from other animation greats Grim Natwick, Bill Tytla and Fred Moore among others. Marc put this book together himself and kept it intact for nearly 90 years. Also on offer are two of Alice Davis’ sketchbooks brimming with her graphite and ink sketches, life drawings, graphite and painted clothing designs, and class notes from her time at Chouinard. In one of them you find her sketches for her first Disney project, which is, according to Deja, is the stuff of Disney legend: Alice’s sketches for the dress she designed for Helene Stanley to wear to model for the animation of the dancing Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. The verisimilitude of her animated movement is a highlight of Marc Davis’ stunning career; this kind of innovation made the movie aesthetically groundbreaking in its realism and visual abundance.

The couple’s warm personal and working bond with other Disney legends is evident in this archive: a handful of Mary Blair's original paintings are here, along with personal correspondence, and a group of concept drawings for Cinderella’s fairy godmother by Marc Davis and Blair is ultra-rare in graphite given Blair’s usual use of gouache.

Deja points to a true gem of the archive offered in April, the artist’s artist choice: The watercolor and conte crayon drawing Four Artists Paint One Tree is Marc’s original illustration from the seminal 1958 Disney television show An Adventure in Art. This unique film was narrated by Walt Disney himself and for it Davis, along with Eyvind Earle, Joshua Meador and Walt Peregoy explore various artistic interpretations of a California oak tree, with each artist employing distinct techniques and styles to capture the essence of the subject. Here Marc’s interpretation is alive with, as Deja puts it, “bone structure, anatomy. A thing of bone and muscle. It’s extraordinary.”

The Davis Archive leads an auction bursting with Disney and Disney Parks history, with some of the most surprising objects and artworks Heritage has ever seen in this enormously popular category.

“I had the sheer honor and joy to host Marc and Alice Davis to the Midwest Animation Lecture Series in Chicagoland in 1992,” says Jim Lentz, Heritage's Vice President of Animation and Anime Art. “It was the first time I met this beautiful couple. I consider curating this magnificent collection one of my personal career highlights.”

Disney’s artifacts — historic and unusual — find their way to Heritage via Lentz and his team’s careful and considerate expertise and enthusiasm, and another exquisite archive of early plans for Disneyland are among the showstoppers in this event. Prior to creating the Parks, Walt regularly took his young daughters to a modest Los Angeles amusement park called Beverly Park; he eventually tapped its proprietor, a self-taught engineer named David Bradley, to work with Disney artist Bruce Bushman to design rides, attractions and the overall layout for what would ultimately become Disneyland. The Bradley/Bushman Early Disneyland Archivesis a staggering collection of breathtaking never-before-seen park plans and concepts from the pre-dawn era of Disneyland. “I can’t draw,” Bradley explained, “but I could talk to Bruce Bushman.” Bushman sketched as Bradley talked; Bradley critiqued and Bushman revised. The treasure trove includes both famous and never-before-seen concepts for Disney rides and attractions as they appeared in their infancy, with images of park plans, maps and layouts featuring sections such as Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. Their concepts for attractions like the beloved Dumbo ride, the Skyway, and Motor Mania (renamed Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride) are presented alongside an image of Walt’s vision for an 80-foot-tall figure of Goofy dressed as a clown through whose legs visitors would pass when entering the park. The concepts and drawings are masterpieces in their own right.

This is Heritage’s largest Disney Parks auction to date with too many highlights to mention in one sitting, but sure to trigger a bidding war is what is believed to be the last surviving and most complete version of a shooting gallery produced by Disney’s WED Enterprises. After the completion of Disney World, Disney decided that some of these unique attractions could be “de-Disneyfied” and made available for sale, and the shooting gallery in this auction is believed to be the only known and complete example of this attempt by the Disney company to market one of its WED-produced attractions. Based on the shooting galleries in Disneyland’s Frontierland and Disney World’s Contemporary resort, this gallery once graced the Santa Cruz boardwalk in California. Within the six themed sections — including an old western bar, a haunted pirate ship, a medieval castle and a gator- and frog-filled swamp — are 50 individual gags that, along with the gun stations, occupy a massive footprint.

The Animatronic characters of Disneyland and Disney World are often among the most memorable and mind-blowing inventions in the memories of Disney fans of every age, and among other highlights of this massive event are Animatronics used in the Disney Parks: functioning Enchanted Tiki Room birds; an Audio-Animatronic A-100 frame, an Audio-Animatronic figure from Epcot’s Food Rocks attractio. Also on tap are original silkscreened attraction posters of many classic Disney Parks attractions, as well as signage, costumes, props, behind-the-scenes documents, and many more artifacts spanning more than 70 years of Disney Parks history.

“This may be Heritage’s best sale ever for The Art of Disneyland,” says Lentz. “The Complete WED Shooting Gallery in addition to the Bradely/Bushman Archives for the early development of Disneyland are once-in-a-lifetime auction opportunities. If Disneyland is the happiest place on earth, I believe this auction may be the happiest auction on earth!”