DALLAS, TX.- Rarely does a single auction encompass the entire history of an art form. But on August 16-19, Heritage will do just that when it presents The History of Animation: The Glad Museum Collection Signature® Auction. The Glad Museum, a vast collection built over decades by one man with impeccable taste and encyclopedic knowledge of animation’s international trajectory, is on offer over four days and more than 1500 lots that, in a sense, chronicle the entire rollercoaster of the 20th century and show us the rich and fascinating landscape of animation’s greatest artists and titles — from Winsor McCay’s earliest outings just after the turn of the century and Ub Iwerks’ introduction of Mickey Mouse, to UPA and Warner Brothers’ smart and stylish mid-century masterpieces to The Simpsons’ Homer and Bart (and everything in between). Think back on your favorite animated shorts, series and cinematic masterpieces and you will find a crucial piece of it here; never has an auction so comprehensively covered the ingenious sweep of animation artistry.

“Long before the animation art craze that kicked off in the 1980s and early ’90s, Mr. Glad was contacting the world’s great animators and collectors, including such animation heavyweights Joe Grant, Maurice Noble, Paul Julian, Bill Hurtz and others, acquiring whatever they were willing to part with — often entire collections,” says Jim Lentz, Heritage's Vice President of Animation and Anime Art. “He compiled vast assortments of original art from Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM, Lantz, UPA and other studios dating back to the dawn of the art form, and much of it is considered to be the very best-of-the-best.”

The event presents the astonishing material Mike Glad’s collection is famous for; works from the Glad Museum Collection have traveled widely for dedicated museum exhibitions of animation art, including at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Disney Family Museum, the Museum of Flight, the Deutschers Film Museum and many more. It’s not that significant concept art by Disney great Mary Blair or a Maurice Noble concept painting for the Bugs Bunny classic What’s Opera, Doc? need added provenance to be among the most sought-after works in animation history, but the wide celebration of the Glad Collection points to animation’s universal appeal, and the ever-increasing public interest in these building-blocks of our favorite animated features and shorts. It also tells us something about just how much we value this cultural treasure trove. The catalog for this auction should be on the coffee table of every animation connoisseur as a reference book, whether your jam is Mintz’s Krazy Kat, Disney’s The Aristocatsor Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat: It’s all here, and via this extraordinary auction the works will find new collection homes.

“Any discussion about the history of animation must start with Gertie,” says Glad, referring to the seminal 1914 short film Gertie the Dinosaur by Winsor McCay. McCay, the creator of the popular comic strip Little Nemo and the true pioneer of animation made Gertie, generally considered the first widely-known animated short, from ink drawings rather than cels. Fittingly, the auction kicks off with a handful of these gorgeous McCay drawings that formed Gertie, including scenes of the adorable and feisty sauropod dallying with a mammoth, standing on her hind legs, and taking a rest.

“Very little preproduction or production art from the early animated films has survived, and few artistic treasures have been found of McCay’s animation work,” says Glad. “Robert Brotherton, another artist and McCay aficionado, should be thanked. He rescued Gertie production drawings, a few cels from another McCay film The Sinking of the Lusitania and the nitrate prints of the films.” Drawings from McCay’s 1918 outing Lusitania are on offer too, in their dense and inky glory.

Other astonishing finds from the earliest days of animation include drawings and cels from the great shorts of the 1920s and ’30s, including Van Buren Studios’ Felix the Cat and Charles Mintz’s Krazy Kat; rare and significant Alice Comedies series drawings from Disney (check out this whole zoo of Alice’s fans riding a double-decker bus from 1926’s Alice’s Brown Derby), and of course the earliest presentations of Mickey Mouse and others by the great Ub Iwerks.

“In 1928 the Disney studio was in chaos,” says Glad. “The majority of their animators and the rights to their character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit had been stolen by their producer Charles Mintz. But the most talented animator, Ub Iwerks, remained, and he storyboarded then animated the complete films Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie — and Mickey Mouse, a cartoon with sound, was born. Any collection on the history of animation should have an early Iwerks Mickey.”

Speaking of Disney, this event brims with cels and production art from some of the most iconic characters and scenes the studio ever produced, including from Golden Age greats in Mary Blair, Marc Davis and Eyvind Earle’s breathtaking concept paintings for Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and more, to production cels that unspooled as Disney’s most famous scenes: Lady and Tramp sharing a plate of spaghetti, Mickey conducting his magic brooms in Fantasia, Snow White’s forest friends pitching in, and Dumbo taking flight. It’s not just the early years: The auction covers Disney’s Silver and Bronze Ages (choice cels, storyboards and concept art from The Jungle Book, for example) and of course its incredible Renaissance: Magnificent and dramatic productions cels and more featuring Ariel, Belle, Simba, and Aladdin are all here (not to mention Ursula, Jafar and Scar...).

You can expect the unexpected all over this four-day event, including a whole section of Disney and other studios’ output during World War II, when they pivoted from making pure entertainment to the urgent task of interpreting the darkening wartime in propaganda and military training productions. Leading this section: Disney’s feature documentary Victory Through Air Power is one of the most enduring, and concept art and striking cels of that film are here, as well as from Disney’s unsettling and infamous Education for Death.

One of Glad’s favorite animation studios is UPA, which was started by former Disney artists who wanted to push the envelope of a more stylized and modern animation look. UPA is long admired by serious students of the form, and Glad has collected significant cels, concept art and more from UPA that are on offer in the August auction: An original production cel setup from UPA's 1944 Chuck Jones-directed political film Hell-Bent for Election is a remarkable piece of animation history. The film was produced by UPA for the United Auto Workers to support Franklin D. Roosevelt's re-election campaign. This setup, which served as key art used in the film and for publicity, consists of a hand-painted 12 field-size production cel over a screen-used color card. Other notable UPA offerings include production cels from the classic Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol and a rare sequence of 24 storyboard/color keys for Gerald McBoing-Boing by Jules Engel and Herb Klynn.

On the topic of Chuck Jones: Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies’ greatest hits help shape this auction to the tune of more than 100 lots. Daffy Duck is here, along with Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, Wile E. Coyote… if you’re looking for Bugs Bunny at his finest (say, antagonizing Elmer Fudd) find him here in some of the most fluid and lyrical animation cels ever created.

Our favorite cartoons and characters are in our blood: Hundreds of production cels and more from Hanna-Barbera Studios are here — that’s Yogi’s charming and goofy gang — as well as works from the studio of Jay Ward, better known as Rocky, Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Geoge of the Jungle and company. The Peanuts gang, brought to you by the studio of Bill Melendez, are here too: Here’s a production cel of everyone’s favorite beagle adventuring as the Masked Marvel in 1969’s It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown, compliments of the artist Dean Spille.

Not all cartoons are for kids. Works from Ralph Bakshi productions Fritz the Cat, Wizards, Lord of the Rings, Heavy Traffic, Fire and Ice and American Pop are in this event, and speaking of adult fare: Production cels from every chapter of the cult-fave Heavy Metal are on offer. The 1981 anthology was animated by eight studios, including Halas & Batchelor, Atkinson Film Arts, and Boxcar. Here’s the "Soft Landing" opening titles storyboard sequence of 15 — vintage Corvette, space shuttle, Earth — which should jog the memories of nearly every Gen-Xer in North America (who watched it on cable after mom and dad went to bed).

One-of-a-kind and ultra-rare posters made to promote animated features and shorts and the very art of animation are in this event, topped by this doozie: It’s the remarkable 1967 poster for the World Retrospective of Animation Cinema (La Cinémathèque canadienne) titled "The Origin and Golden Age of the American Cartoon Film 1906 — 1941." The Retrospective took place in Montreal, and was one of the most historically significant cocktail gatherings of animation's greatest legends. The mandate of the Cinémathèque canadienne (the future Cinémathèque québécoise) is "to preserve, document, and highlight the national and international cinematographic and television heritage” and this event was led by two animation enthusiasts: the French critic André Martin and the founder of the Cinémathèque, Guy L. Coté. André Martin and Guy L. Coté created this poster, a comprehensive timeline of the most significant artists, studios and productions in animation history. It is essentially both a family tree and an unfolding evolution of an art form, as eminently readable as it is beautifully designed and executed.

“The Retrospective was attended by the greatest names in the animation industry,” says Lentz. “John Randolph Bray, Otto Messmer, Dave Fleischer, Ub Iwerks, Paul Terry, Walter Lantz, Shamus Culhane, Art Babbitt, Bill Tytla, Chuck Jones, Ward Kimball, Grim Natwick, Bob Clampett, June Foray, and Paul Frees as well as countless others. The president of honor was Canadian animation legend Norman McLaren. This poster is a must-have for any animation historian and enthusiast!”