Item Details:

THE RAVEN

FLEISCHER STUDIOS ARTISTS

GOLDEN AGE OF ANIMATION, 1941

Original Production Panorama Background Painting appearing prominently in the atmospheric opening scene of the Two-Reel Cartoon, based on Edgar Allen Poe's famous 1845 Poem of the same name

The Raven is a travesty of the famous poem with a tour-de-force collection of clever gag twists, conceived of by director Dave Fleischer, propelling the action forward with a wild ride around the then-modern convenience of a vacuum cleaner, touted as an electric bagpipe by a pair of mismatched species animal ex-con door-to-door salesmen to a tightwad Scottie dog, all colliding into a fast-paced sequence/connected cacophony of visuals, cleverly uniting and commenting on the World War II milieu of American production know-how vs. the frugality of war rationing, con-men/crime stories and radio broadcasts of the day, all set to a parody of the familiar rhyme.  A real period piece, being a short-term light-hearted escape from the oppressive gravity of a world at war.

Edition: this is a one-of-a-kind item

Publisher: Fleischer Studios/Paramount

Watercolor Gouche

Size: 11.0 x 32.25 in; 27.94 x 81.92 cm

Signed: According to the Studio Notes on Verso, this Pan Production Background took 19 hours to complete: 6 ½ hours for the pencil foundational Tracing and 13 hours for the Rendering

Artists noted on Verso: Drebert (Tracing), Miller & Sylvester (Rendering), OK'd by Supervisor Erich Schenk (1901?-1955).

Private Collection, New York City