CE -- A lifetime of collecting comic related material :: Disney Studio Pt. 7 - 1930s Publicity Drawings for Mickey and Donald Shorts *

Complete Set of Watercolors for the Donald's Lucky Day Good Housekeeping Page, 1939

Artist: Hank Porter (All)

1 Comment - 1,521 Views - 0 Like

Complete Set of Watercolors for the Donald's Lucky Day Good Housekeeping Page, 1939 Comic Art

Additional Images:

Published Good Housekeeping Page

One Sheet Poster for Donald's Lucky Day

Previous Item:
Complete Set of Watercolors for the Moving Day Good Housekeeping Page, 1936

Next Item:
Title Watercolor for the Mickey's Parrot Good Housekeeping Page, 1938

Artwork Details

Title:	Complete Set of Watercolors for the Donald's Lucky Day Good Housekeeping Page, 1939
Artist:	Hank Porter (All)
Media Type:	Paint - Watercolor
Art Type:	Animation
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	1,521
Likes on CAF:	0 1
Comments:	1
Added to Site:	9/6/2006
Comic Art Archive:

Description

The Story of the Original watercolors for the Disney Good Housekeeping Pages, Pt. 2:

For the year or two after the Good Housekeeping watercolors first appeared on the market, there didn't seem to be a great deal of interest in them. I was able to buy a couple more, including he worst piece from the Mickey's Parrot page -- just the parrot; beautifully colored but a minor character -- and another one of the best pieces from Good Scouts. I traded the badly cut piece from Antarctic Trappers for the unused poster drawing for Good Scouts plus the second best piece from Donald's Golf Game. I already had the title piece, which is one of my favorites of all the painted Good Housekeeping art.

But the good days of relatively cheap Good Housekeeping art were short lived. The New York dealer in American paintings, Alexander Acevedo, started buying up all the Good Housekeeping art that he could get his hands on. He ended up with the Antarctic Trappers piece I had traded away. He needed it to complete the page, which, up until the time he published his impressive catalogue of Good Housekeeping art he had for sale, was the best complete page that he had. It is interesting that several of the partial pages that were for sale in that catalogue were incomplete because i had the missing pieces. In any event, it is doubtful that Acevedo sold many of the pieces in the catalogue, since they were priced at many times what they had been going for up until then.

Alexander Acevedo then did something that most people who knew of the Good Housekeeping pages thought was crazy -- he put a large ad in the Comics Buyer Guide offering huge price for each page of the pre-1938 Good Housekeeping art. None of the art from 1934 through 1937 had ever come onto the market. And many of those pages were among the greatest, including all the pages with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in their prime. But the pages did still exist and still were in the possession of Good Housekeeping Magazine. Since the offers, in the range of $35,000 to $50,000 per full page, were so high, the Disney Studio and Good Housekeeping Magazine got together and sold them all to Acevedo!

I'm not sure how long it was until Acevedo lost interest in the Disney art, but almost all ended up in the hands of a big player in comics and a speculator-type who is known for "making markets" for comic art. They were asking up to $150,000 or so for the best pages in the early 1990s. Again, it is doubtful that they had much success in selling artwork that never gained the popularity among collectors that it deserved. Instead, the market for this great art was almost destroyed, since the prices were pushed too high too quickly.

Despite the sad shape of the market for Good Housekeeping art, which was going nowhere since it was priced out of reach to those who might otherwise be interested in it, I was able to complete the Donald's Lucky Day page when the three pieces I had passed on the first day I ever saw any of the watercolors turned up in a Russ Cochran auction. When they failed to sell, I offered Russ $15,000 for the three, which he accepted. Although this was ten times what I could have bought them for in 1984, it seemed cheap compared to the prices that were being asked for GH art in the early 1990s.

Social/Sharing

About the Owner

	C E
Joined:	April 2006
Last Login:	August 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
On CAF:	C's Want List Artworks Commented On Liked Art Site Activity on CAF

Contact the Owner

Use can use a contact form to send an email to this gallery owner,
but, you must be logged in to use this feature.

Comments on this Artwork

You must be logged in to make comments.

Ardag B
Member Since 2014

Posted on 9/3/2016

Great set!

All
	Paul Handler 9/6/2025 3:16:00 PM
	Chris Johnson 9/6/2025 3:16:00 PM
	Greg Morrow 9/6/2025 3:14:00 PM
	Claudio D'Ubaldo 9/6/2025 3:08:00 PM
	Greg McKee 9/6/2025 3:02:00 PM
View All


	Peter Venkman 9/6/2025 2:54:00 PM
	J Murdock 9/6/2025 2:47:00 PM
	Hassan T 9/6/2025 2:47:00 PM
	Comic_Lore @ 9/6/2025 2:19:00 PM
	Bruce W 9/6/2025 2:17:00 PM