(Walt Disney Studios, circa 1960s) Desirable original concept painting by Marc Davis for Disneyland's famous dark ride attraction Pirates of the Caribbean, which depicts a pirate in a merry full-length pose carrying an anguished rope-bound wench over his shoulder, signed in the lower right in black felt tip by Davis. Accomplished in ink and watercolor on untrimmed 12 x 10 heavyweight art paper, the scene is impressively captured through its use of balanced color and engaging action, the woman’s desperate flailing an apparent source of comedy for the single-toothed, rifle-armed pirate. In fine condition, with tack holes to corners.
One of Disney's Nine Old Men, the legendary core animators of early Disney films, Davis joined Disney in 1935 as an apprentice animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He continued to work on classic films like Bambi, Cinderella, and Alice in Wonderland, and then later transferred to Disney’s Imagineering team where he contributed whimsical story and character concepts for Disneyland attractions like the Haunted Mansion, It’s a Small World, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Davis is probably best known as the father of some of Disney’s most memorable animated women, including Cruella De Vil from One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, and Tinker Bell from Peter Pan.
