Ron Stark and the team at S/R Laboratories Animation Art Conservation Center are keeping Snow White and other iconic animated characters alive through a fading art form — hand-drawn and hand-painted animation. “So many people don’t know we’re here and all the magnificent things we can do for them,” said Stark, the company’s founder and CEO. He claims S/R is the world’s only remaining animation art conservation firm. The company’s Westlake Village office functions as an art studio and has the feel of a fine art gallery. Walls are lined with hand-painted animation cels, sketches, and reference drawings from animated feature films and shorts. Many represent the work of The Walt Disney Co., but S/R also has examples from other studios from the classic era of hand-drawn animation of the 1930s through 1960s — Hanna Barbara Productions, Fleischer Studios, and Filmation. S/R started in 1976 as a volunteer effort of the Animation Society and became a private business in 1984, after Stark lost his job at the American Heart Association. At the time, animation art was just starting to become appreciated as fine art and Stark became a pioneer in restoration and conservation techniques. Over the years Stark has added other services to the repertoire — custom framing, auctions, photo restoration — and he resurrected the Courvoisier Galleries name to offer the Studio Replicas line of art depicting Disney characters. For the 75th anniversary of “Snow White” this year, S/R will offer three limited-production runs of hand-painted cels and follow up later this year with Dumbo and Tinkerbell cels. Stark said he called Roy E. Disney, Walt’s nephew, and Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald Duck, personal friends. He was an executive producer on the documentary, “The Hand Behind the Mouse,”and helped to curate a 2001 exhibit on Walt Disney at the Ronald Reagan Foundation & Library. And while Stark spends his days surrounded by artwork, he admits he is better at sketching than he is at character drawing. He said the first time he attempted to draw Mickey his hand shook. Question: What is an animation art conservation center? Answer: As we perceived it, it is a facility to respond to virtually any need to animation art. Either cels, backgrounds, drawings, sketches, model sheets — anything connected to the animation process, including maquettes (models used for an artist’s reference). Later on, we began to add porcelain and ceramic to our list of things that we restore. It started out simply as a service to respond to cels and grew out from there as we realized that a conservation center includes the restoration of almost anything. Q: What is the appeal of animation art to collectors? A: It can be owning a piece of film history. It can be owning a piece of their childhood or fond memory. It can be owning a piece of American history that is unique in the art world. Q: How did the connection with Disney come about? A: The majority of artwork in the marketplace was always Disney art. It was a natural transition. We needed to identify with the Disney company technique and methods to repair their art. There was a natural connection. Q: Do you work with other studios work, as well? A: Absolutely. The other studios had ink and paint departments. Disney still has one but the other studios don’t. We were very fortunate to be close to Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. When I told them what I was doing they wanted to participate right away. They gave us their wet and dry samples and their color keys and were happy to give us all their resources. We came in just as much of the hand-drawn art was going out. Q: How did you start your business? A: I was vice president of the Animation Society and created a project called the Search and Rescue Team. That is where the S/R comes from. The search had been helping members find animation art and the rescue was the restoration. I did it for recreation. As more members got to know I did this work, they would give it to the search and rescue team. We asked companies to be corporate sponsors. Companies were fascinated. There were no places you could go to get your cel restored. In 1984, my assignment ended at the American Heart Association, where I was radio, television and film producer. I started this as a full-time business with the approval of the Animation Society. Q: So until 1984 it was a part-time job? A: It wasn’t really part-time. I was just a volunteer. I learned a great deal. In that time animation began its stellar climb. People began to recognize animation art as fine art. Q: You weren’t looking to start your own business? A: Oh, no. It was really labor of love until I lost my position at American Heart. It was something I adored doing. It was slow. We had nobody to tell us what was what. Disney had an interesting product for their background painters called Aqua Fix. The studio asked us to make more and we didn’t quite know what it was because we had never used it before. It took us about 18 months to find out what Aqua Fix was. We traced it back to the formula book of the man who supposedly created it for Disney. Q: You had the corporate sponsors before the company was founded. Did you go to them for financial support? A: They gave us no money. We really didn’t want money. Money means you are going to buy something. I went to (arts supplier) Winsor & Newton, and I asked them for brushes and pigment. Everybody has samples. We went to Paasche Airbrush Co., who has never sent us a check. When I call them for a show I’m going to do, they are fantastic. They always send the airbrushes we need. We’ve retained every corporate sponsor we had when we started as a nonprofit organization. People were so delighted to contribute to what we do they stayed as corporate sponsors. Q: How did you acquire Courvoisier Galleries name, and how does that brand contribute to your overall business? A: Courvoisier Galleries (in San Francisco) was the first seller of Disney art. They sold this art from around 1938 to 1946-1947 and then they closed the gallery. In 1997, we filed for and were awarded the copyright and trademark of Courvoisier Galleries. We thought about the Studio Replicas line and had it licensed (from Disney) and released that under the Courvoisier Gallery banner. The name had become identified with vintage Disney. Q: How did the Studio Replicas line start? A: The idea came to me in 1981. A couple years ago, we started producing them and doing a soft release to see how people reacted to them, knowing we were ramping up to Snow White’s birthday (in 2012). Q: How many Studio Replicas prints do you make? A: We now make no more than 50. We know that there are so many tales to tell and scenes to create; we’d rather create new ones. We’re going to make them in small number and not get tired of making them and release them. That’s the way Courvoisier did it originally. They never made more than 25 or 30 of anything. Q: Is that line your main revenue generator? A: No, we don’t have a main revenue generator. S/R Laboratories is a multifaceted company. We have our auction we do every May and October. We have our conservation and restoration and framing we do throughout the year. We have our product line. I’m also an expert witness and trial consultant in my field. I work for those who need me and my expertise. We do special kinds of projects. Mercedes Benz of Encino called us out to frame and install their picture gallery. We restore and conserve fine art paintings and posters. We also test products for companies. Q: S/R has quite the extensive color lab. Was it difficult to get color samples? A: They were impossible, actually, at one time. Bob Gibeaut, who was head of Disney studio for many years, it took him a while to believe that we knew what we were talking about. Bob was a great inspiration to us and a great help in providing samples of their desk colors. Then something miraculous happened. I got a call from someone at Disney that said their paint lab color man by the name of David Braden had been let go. I had a meeting with him. I asked him if he remembered any of the formulas that he used. He said, ‘No, I really don’t but I wrote them all down.’ I said, ‘Could you share that with me?’ He said, ‘I have no need for it.’ David and I recreated the Disney paint lab of old right here. It’s a total wow. He met his wife while working here and then he moved away, first to Florida and then Georgia. Q: How much are you involved in the back end business functions? A: I am involved with everybody’s work. I have my own job functions. I’m the IT guy. Mike Real and I both share the lab services issues that come about. Our frame shop manager just retired, so I am taking over until we find another manager. Dave Braden is our color man to this day and we have to do color work and talk about color formulas long distance. Q: Do the business functions overwhelm the restoration and preservation work? A: Nothing overwhelms anything else. It is very well ordered. The one thing that we have as a business model is that everybody is empowered to make a good decision and everybody is trained to do it. Everybody understands what a client wants when they call, how to manage their artwork, how to manage their sensitivities as they’re waiting. Some treatments take a long time. Sometime a treatment kicks off, which mean it fails and we have to do it over. Q: What is your favorite Disney movie? A: To be honest, it is hard to know what the favorite movie is. “Pinocchio” is considered to be Walt’s crowning glory. Then you see the dance sequence in “Snow White” of Snow White dancing with the dwarves at night and they are all playing instruments. “Sleeping Beauty” is the last hand-inked film and it’s exquisite. There are more inks in “Sleeping Beauty” than you can imagine and they are all hand-applied. “Snow White” has that ‘30s look that is so special. I love them all for different reasons. If I had to say which is my absolute favorite, I’d probably say “Snow White.” But, golly, they are all amazing.
PRESERVE & PROTECT
