Rubén Procopio

On this page a short biography of the sculptor can be found along with a list of sculptures he or she made.

Biography

Rubén Procopio is a multitalented artist for over 25 years. In the sixties Procopio, from Italian decent, moved as a child with his family from Argentina to Los Angeles. His father, Adolfo Procopio, went to work for Walt Disney Imagineering (for 35 years) and passed on his love for Disney on to his children, because besides Rubén Procopio also Rubén's sister Vivian worked a long time for Disney.

Procopio earned scholarships to attend the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and, after High School, he studied at the prestigious California Institute of Arts. It was during those days, the early Eighties, that he started to work for Walt Disney Feature Animation. Procopio had the chance to work with Eric Larson, one of the legendary Nine Old Men, and he soon worked on an actual production, The Fox and the Hound.
At Walt Disney Feature Animation he worked in several capacities: he was an animator, storyboard artist, character designer, artistic supervisor, department head and master sculptor. Procopio has brought the creation of maquettes back to the production process of a Disney feature.

The well-known Smithsonian Institute (National Museum of American History) honors Procopio by adding his maquette of Ursula to the permanent collection.

Procopio is involved with the Walt Disney Classics Collection since its inception: in the beginning not as a sculptor, but as an expert on Disney characters. He was asked to look at the sculptures and give his remarks. One of the remarks he gave at that time was to add a hole on the bottom of Goofy’s shoes, in the one of him playing the trombone (Goofy's Grace Notes), because it was typically Goofy.

Procopio currently runs his own studios, Masked Avenger Studios in Burbank, California. Among his clients are big names such as Disney, Warner Bros., DC Comics and many more.

You can learn more about Rubén Procopio by reading the exclusive interview we had with him in July 2007 (click here to go to the interview).

Sculptures