On December 11, 1958, Walt Disney presided over the opening gala for The Art of Animation, the last exhibition to feature his studio's artwork during his lifetime. The retrospective premiered at the San Francisco Museum of Art and was notably ambitious (Figures 1 and 2). Designed and produced by the Disney Studio in three nearly identical versions, it contained more original Disney art than any previous exhibition and was accompanied by a souvenir booklet, referred to as a “catalog” in exhibition documents (Figure 3).1 A recently published book of the same name by Bob Thomas was also sold at most venues.2 The Art of Animation toured 20 US locations for 11 months (see Appendix). During that period, one version went to Europe in July, and at the tour's completion, another version was sent to Japan. The third version was refurbished and installed at Disneyland for a 6-year stint beginning in September 1960,3 by which time the exhibition had cost the studio about $400,000, according to a letter written by then Disney Vice President, Card Walker (1960).
As this study will suggest, The Art of Animation's content and venue selection were driven by two goals important to Walt Disney. The first was to use the exhibition as an elaborate marketing tool within a larger promotional program supporting the release of Sleeping Beauty (1959), a film which had been in development and production for the better part of the 1950s at the staggering cost of $6 million dollars (Maltin, 1987, p. 74). Walt's second goal for The Art of Animation was to position—once and for all—Walt and his studio within the history of fine art and to demonstrate that they belonged there. An exhibition filled with drawings, background paintings, and animation cels from Sleeping Beauty, the film Walt had “planned…as his masterpiece,” (Maltin, 1987, p. 74) became the perfect vehicle.
The warm embrace of the art world during the 1930s and early 1940s, including the sale and collection of tens of thousands of pieces of Disney animation art—many acquired by art museums and private collectors—had not ensured a permanent place for Walt and his studio's art within this world. Walt's own attitude in the matter, as reported in the press, varied. He could be indifferent, as in his oft-repeated 1937 comment to Aldous Huxley, “We just try to make a good picture. And then the professors come along and tell us what we do” (Time, 1937, p. 21). Or he could be modest, as when a cel from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, “It's a great honor. I feel proud that the thing is stuck in there. But it won't change our policies any. We'll still go on in our old blundering way” (Nugent, 1939, p. 5). However, these reactions from Walt were privately accompanied by an unspo
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号