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Wonderful World of Animation Art Gallery
9517 Culver Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232 310-836-4992 |
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The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) Concept piece of Ichabod Crane. The artwork measures 7.5" x 8.5". Mary Blair did not need her characters to be human in order to give them very distinct personalities as she proves here in yet another brilliant concept piece from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In the bottom right corner we see the skittish schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, with his equally cowardice horse, both with great trepidation on their faces as they are about to enter the menacing forest that surrounds Sleepy Hollow. The focus, however, is the giant, looming tree which resides in the center of the piece, striking well warranted fear into the hearts of both the unlikely protagonist and his knock-kneed beast. Despite a lack of discernable facial features, Mary brings the intimidating tree to life by giving it two glowing eyes and two arm-like limbs, each with their own claw hanging from their end. Behind it an army of similarly frightening foliage lurks. In this part of the film, Ichabod and his horse would soon find themselves silly after realizing their fear was brought about by a harmless owl, but they did not yet know the true danger that still lay ahead. There is evidence of pin holes towards the extremes of each corner, which can be easily matted out. As pinning up artwork for evaluation was often part of the creative process, this is fairly common for this type of work.. The size of the image is 2.75" h x 2.25" w. US$ 11500 (unframed) WDAPP13 
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