Up for auction painting "Walt Disney's Dancing Ostriches" by Paula Rego

Offered for the first time at auction, Walt Disney's "Dancing Ostriches of 'Fantasia'" (1995) is expected to fetch between £2.2 million and £3.2 million when it goes under the hammer at Christie's in London. It would be a record auction for the Portuguese-British artist, who died in 2022. To date, this record is held by “The Cadet and His Sister” (1988), which was sold at Sotheby's in London in 2015 for £1.15 million.

The theatrical diptych is based on one of the film's most memorable sequences, in which animated ostriches perform a ballet from Amilcare Ponchielli's 1876 opera “La Gioconda”, flapping their wings in a humorous and cartoonish manner. Paula Rego it alludes to the sequence in the flightless postures and egocentric conceit of its dancers, but the similarities end there. While Disney's avian dancers are caricatures that lose feathers, Paula Rego transforms them back into women (represented in pastel on paper). The work can be read as a challenge to the male gaze, resisting stereotypes and choreographed routines of youth, beauty and femininity – a characteristic subversion of the theme for the artist.

Paula Rego he said that the piece – the central work in a series of five – stems from his enchantment with Walt Disney, whom he considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. During its production, Paula Rego channeled fond memories of watching “Fantasia,” released in 1940, and other children’s classics when he was young with his grandmother in Portugal. His father ran the country's first cinema, where watching Disney films on the big screen sparked his lifelong interest in fairy tales and folklore.

“Dancing Ostriches” has been shown prominently around the world since it was first shown at London’s Hayward Gallery in 1996 to celebrate the centenary of British cinema. Shortly after this debut, it entered the Saatchi collection, from which the current owner acquired it. According to Christie's, it has been requested for loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel in 2024–25.

Source: Artnet News