Kim's Corner
Page 2 of 6

For those who were unable to make it to Disneyana to meet Dick, you missed a lot of fun and good conversation and the release of some great collectables. He’s a fun guy and we found a lot to giggle about since he became part of the collector’s world at a point when I started seriously collecting. But, he’s also a serious guy when it comes to his work and his ideas about the way art works on people. Dick has been an artist most of his life, as a kid growing up in Los Angeles he loved Disney movies and comics - and some of that very early influence can be linked to his work today - and after high school he studied commercial art at Pierce College for a little bit and worked in a graphic arts firm.

He began his 22-year-long career with the Walt Disney Company in 1976 and learned about the world of collectors during his years as an art director for the Walt Disney Art Classics division. As he began adding some more paint to Donald, he remembered his first trips to the International Collector’s Exposition in South Bend (now held in Rosemont and this year in Anaheim), "When the Classics Collection first got started… that was a lot of fun. That was also my first real experience with ‘real’ collectors… People would spend their vacations there." He laughed, "I like those people that are collectors… not just because they buy, but they’re pretty neat people actually." We both agreed that there was a passion - to whatever degree - for collecting that some people shared.

Dick begins working on an “iconic” Donald.   He begins his images with the basics of the character and then adds layers of color as they take on his distinct style.
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Dick explains how a bit of color and a curved line give a flat art image some dimensionality.
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He also learned the power of a fan base and the impact on an artist and on the marketplace. "I guess that I never really realized the interest for, for instance Sam Butcher (the artist and inventor of the Precious Moments line), I never heard of the guy, never heard of him … but collectors… that people will line-up for days just to come near him… They absolutely idolized this guy. Amazing. It was amazing. I really enjoyed the collector’s part of it then, it wasn’t really a huge industry, yet, then. I mean it was getting bigger, but it wasn’t there yet." It amazed him that people would actually spend their time standing in line to meet an artist, get an autograph, a postcard, a button or other memento. He learned then, that there was a necessary relationship built between the artist and the item in the minds of collectors.

He remembered attending an artist’s breakfast in the early days of Disney’s involvement in, what had yet to become, the collectables industry, "People just sat down at their tables and I sat down and said ‘Hi, I’m Dick Duerrstein with the Disney Classics Collection’, and a guy there said, ‘I’m David Winter and I do these little houses.’ And I said ‘Yeah, I know who you are.’ He was so quiet." From the early days to the future of collecting, Dick is also taking advantage of the Internet and offering character art originals for auction on Disney Auctions. "I like originals. I’ll do serigraphs and posters and things, but I think I enjoy originals more. Because, really, for me, it’s kind of easy."

Dick made the segue from Art Classics to character art pretty seamlessly. "I’ve always done the paintings, like this (pointing to Donald) and I’ve done them a lot… I was an art director primarily." And, to some degree he still is. He added, "I’ve always done these paintings for executives and whatever, and different parts of Disney, and then also, I’ve done a couple of (merchandise) programs when I was in licensing and they would have a signature poster or something, like Fresh Mouse for instance, many years ago, and that became a Library of Congress piece. So that’s sort of where I got started with this… when I started not many people were doing Disney character on canvas paintings, a lot of people are doing them now."

Dick adds a bit of oil pastel highlighting – adding a more defined shape and depth to the image.
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