A set of Charles Schulz Peanuts drawings intended to decorate a Los Angeles school footbridge will be sold at auction ending next week. The 13 items are expected to realise more than $100,000.
The drawings were made in 1971 as a favour to a member of a school PTA who was a friend of Schulz’s.
The children of Tarzana Elementary School needed a footbridge to get safely to the school. Schulz was asked to help decorate the structure and donated 13 images that were blown up onto 5-foot-high panels and panelled onto the bridge.
To this day the bridge is known by locals as The Snoopy Bridge.
The drawings are now for sale via RR Auction in a sale due to end on June 20.
There are 13 drawings with six colour cels.
Unmistakably Peanuts, the world of Charles M Schulz enchanted generations of Americans.
They are signed “Schulz.” and feature the most famous Peanuts characters: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Schroeder, and Linus.
Schulz’s corrections can be seen on some of the sketches.
RR Auctions say: “A fine survival, and a genuine slice of American life, of which Charlie Brown and his gang have been such a vital part since Schulz first introduced the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip in 1950.”
Charles M Schulz was born in 1922 in Minneapolis. In 1947 his Li’l Folks single-panel cartoons were first published in a St Paul’s paper. By 1950 they had developed into a strip called Peanuts that was nationally syndicated.
The Peanuts strips went on to spawn an empire of TV, film and stage shows, music and memorabilia.
The final story was published in 2000, days after Charles died of a heart attack. Peanuts was firmly established in the American psyche and inextricably linked with childhood in millions of minds.
Schulz’s work is valuable.
Early published strips sell for high prices. In May 2022, a 1952 strip signed by Schulz was auctioned for $87,000.
Original artwork commonly goes for more than $100,000. Particularly well known or emblematic stories can go for much more. In 2021 the original artwork for an 11-panel strip sold for $360,000, helped by Schulz’s “Sparky” (a personal nickname he rarely used) autograph.
Values have held up well from the 2010s to the 2020s.
This item is unique but extremely visually appealing and will be watched closely by Peanuts collectors.
