Disney Limited Edition: Bring Back Her Heart

DISNEY LIMITED EDITION: BRING BACK HER HEART

Jim Salvati

MEDIUM: Hand-Embellished Giclée Print on Canvas
SIZE: 16" x 20"
EDITION SIZE: 50
ARTIST: Jim Salvati
SIGNED: Hand-Signed by Artist
SKU: DFA-LE-BRINGBACKHEART

ABOUT THE IMAGE: Inspired by Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and features the Evil Queen is holding a decorative box with a heart shape lock. 

ABOUT THE MEDIUM:  Limited edition prints are reproductions of an original piece of art work. The giclée prints on canvas are museum quality prints that last the upwards of 100 years. Giclée printing is a process that uses fade-resistant, archival inks and archival substrates to print on large format printers. The run of prints are capped at a specific number. Limited edition prints can be more valuable to art collectors than prints without a restricted number of copies because of the rarity of the prints. Each piece is hand-numbered and embellished by the artist.  Each piece also includes a Certificate of Authenticity.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:  "I'm a very regular guy; there's nothing fancy about me," says Jim, who grew up surfing the beaches of Southern California and went on to graduate from the prestigious Art Center College of Design in 1982.   "I tell my students that you don't have to be extremely talented to make it. You can make it in life on passion and determination."

Jim has plenty of those two attributes, and he most certainly has "made it" in the art world. He's been a prolific artist for movie studios and theaters, with a client list that includes Disney, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures and Radio City Music Hall. He was the master illustrator and conceptual artist behind many of the memorable images and finished paintings associated with the "Harry Potter" films.

He describes his style as "painterly realism", and his favorite subjects are people. Ask him about a painting, and he will tell you the subject's personal story.  Salvati sees his paintings as his portal into various cultures and different areas of society. "I like the connection between people and their culture," he says. "The different emotions, gestures, moods, environments, and style of people in my life and those that I cross paths with, all become part of my storytelling".

"Even with my Disney art, I think it's important to show who a person or character is and what is the most interesting part of their life—the part that is bold and has guts."  Character and boldness can be observed in the scenes that Salvati chooses to depict. They are often not only a defining moment of a film, but usually the most emotionally charged and sometimes heartbreaking. Bambi alone in the woods, the Huntsman with Snow White, and Scar leaving Simba in the canyon, are all turning points in the story, and when the main character had to show their "guts" or courage.

Working in oil paint, Salvati uses panel and sometimes mounted paper preferring the option of layering paint to create a lot of texture, as he feels that an uneven surface adds to the emotion of the story. "My paintings are extremely thick and layered and oil allows me the time I need to play with the color," he says.

For the past 22 years, he's been teaching at Art Center himself, a gig he's found just as rewarding and inspiring as painting. "I love teaching, and students respond to my style because I'm so down to earth," he says. A byproduct of his years as an instructor is his strong connection to artistic diversity as well as a careful observation of the changing world of art and how art interrelates with technology. His experience and knowledge cross many boundaries into Print, Film, Animation, and the fine arts.

ABOUT THE FILM: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated musical fantasy film about a lonely princess living with her stepmother, a vain Queen. The Queen worries that Snow White will be more beautiful than her, so she forces Snow White to work as a scullery maid and asks her Magic Mirror daily "who is the fairest one of all". For years, the mirror always answers that the Queen is, pleasing her, until Snow White comes along.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was produced by Walt Disney Productions and originally released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the 1812 German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, it is the first full-length cel animated feature film and the earliest Disney animated feature film.

Snow White premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, California on December 21, 1937, followed by a nationwide release on February 4, 1938. It was a critical and commercial success, and with international earnings of $8 million during its initial release briefly held the record of highest-grossing sound film at the time. The popularity of the film has led to its being re-released theatrically many times, until its home video release in the 1990s. Adjusted for inflation, it is one of the top-ten performers at the North American box office and the highest-grossing animated film.

Snow White was nominated for Best Musical Score at the Academy Awards in 1938, and the next year, producer Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Oscar for the film. This award was unique, consisting of one normal-sized, plus seven miniature Oscar statuettes. They were presented to Disney by Shirley Temple.

In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the National Film Registry. The American Film Institute ranked it among the 100 greatest American films, and also named the film as the greatest American animated film of all time in 2008. Disney's take on the fairy tale has had a significant cultural impact, resulting in popular theme park attractions, a video game, and a Broadway musical.