Here’s the latest from Rancho Obi-Wan
This is an item that fans of vintage Star Wars Kenner action figures will immediately recognize: it’s the original art for the Star Wars Collector’s Action Stand (or Action Collector’s Stand, or Action Display Stand, depending on where you saw it). It was painted by an unknown artist, probably in the last quarter of 1977 or the early weeks of 1978.
When we acquired the painting in 2001, it had been stored away in darkness for a few decades, so the colors remained vivid, and the board that it’s painted on remained dry and flat. Unfortunately, when it was created, it was almost certainly thought of as an ephemeral object, intended to be photographed and then likely forgotten, so the materials and techniques that were used to craft it would have been selected for efficiency rather than longevity. As a result, some of the paint in one area—the Death Star—was literally falling off in flakes. We needed to act quickly to stabilize it. We called the Seattle Art Museum for advice, and they connected us with a professional art conservation expert who we then contracted to restore the painting and help us preserve it for the future…