Charles Schulz ‘Peanuts’ drawings for Tarzana’s ‘Snoopy Bridge’ are up for auction

A set of 13 original Peanuts drawings by Charles M. Schulz — images that were enlarged into huge paintings on metal panels and used to decorate the ‘Snoopy Bridge’ in the San Fernando Valley — is being auctioned by Boston-based RR Auction with final bids for the original drawings accepted by June 20.

The set of pen-and-ink Peanuts drawings was donated by Schulz in 1971 to adorn a new pedestrian bridge at the intersection of Wilbur Avenue and Collins Street in the Tarzana community.

The original images being auctioned next week include beloved Peanuts characters Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Schroeder and Linus. The images are ink or felt tip drawings and pencil sketches on sturdy artist’s paper measuring approximately 10.5 x 12.5 inches. Cartoonist Schulz signed each one within the image.

Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, said all of the original drawings have been in private hands for awhile and are in “gorgeous shape.”

“These are really spectacular,” he said.

Livingston said there is an additional drawing, of Charlie Brown sitting in a bucket, that didn’t make it onto the Wilbur Avenue Pedestrian Bridge in Tarzana.

The original set is priced at $13,398 but Livingston said he expects to receive about $100,000 for the 13-piece set at auction.

“We wouldn’t be surprised if it gets to six figures,” he said.

The auction’s expected clients, Livingston said, are Peanuts collectors, institutions and people who grew up with Peanuts and Charlie Brown.

Not everyone was happy about the auction which ends on June 20.

“These belong to Charles Schultz Museum,” said Kirk Donovan, a Reseda resident who has advocated restoring the huge but weathered paintings adorning the pedestrian bridge. Donovan said he hoped to talk to the director of the Charles M. Schultz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California.

“If I had $13,000, I would buy them,” Donovan said.

On June 10, city officials unveiled the restored images of “Peanuts” characters on the Snoopy Bridge, which over the years had been vandalized and covered with graffiti.

A team of five artists with Los Angeles-based Hattas Studios worked for two weeks to restore the artwork.

The image that needed the most restoration work was of Charlie Brown, vandalized by someone who painted a black mask over Charlie Brown’s face.

The beloved images on the Snoopy Bridge have seen a lot.

The pedestrian bridge was temporarily closed in 1994 following the Northridge Earthquake when columns that supported the bridge were damaged. In the 1980s, the artwork had to be removed while the city repaired and repainted the bridge. Before that, a political party glued portraits of its candidates over some of the Schultz characters, setting off criticism from members of the community.

Donovan said he and a group of local residents were looking into whether the bridge was eligible to be designated a national historic monument.

The auction is underway now and will continue until Thursday.