{"title":"“Becoming a fine art”: Walt Disney and The Art of Animation exhibition, 1958–1966","authors":"Heather Lynn Holian","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13560","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13560","url":null,"abstract":"<p>On December 11, 1958, Walt Disney presided over the opening gala for <span><i>The Art of Animation</i></span>, 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).<sup>1</sup> A recently published book of the same name by Bob Thomas was also sold at most venues.<sup>2</sup> <i>The Art of Animation</i> 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,<sup>3</sup> by which time the exhibition had cost the studio about $400,000, according to a letter written by then Disney Vice President, Card Walker (<span>1960</span>).</p><p>As this study will suggest, <i>The Art of Animation</i>'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 <i>Sleeping Beauty</i> (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, <span>1987</span>, p. 74). Walt's second goal for <i>The Art of Animation</i> 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 <i>Sleeping Beauty</i>, the film Walt had “planned…as his masterpiece,” (Maltin, <span>1987</span>, p. 74) became the perfect vehicle.</p><p>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” (<i>Time</i>, <span>1937</span>, p. 21). Or he could be modest, as when a cel from <i>Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs</i> 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, <span>1939</span>, p. 5). However, these reactions from Walt were privately accompanied by an unspo","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 2","pages":"143-157"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jacc.13560","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141488204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The othering of women in silent film: Cultural, historical, and literary contexts By Barbara Tepa Lupack, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2024","authors":"Theodore Bain","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13563","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jacc.13563","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 2","pages":"181-182"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141342412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Season to taste: Rewriting kitchen space in contemporary women's food memoirs By Caroline J. Smith, Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. 2023","authors":"Kathy Merlock Jackson","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13564","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jacc.13564","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 3","pages":"238-239"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141338483","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to read we go: A selective bibliography on Disney in American culture","authors":"Camille McCutcheon","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13555","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jacc.13555","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 2","pages":"158-161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141344513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Working some serious magic:” The transtextual use of Easter eggs in Disney+'s Chip'n Dale Rescue Rangers (2022)","authors":"Audrey Louckx","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13557","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jacc.13557","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 2","pages":"131-142"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141360834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reflections on the Walt Disney Company at 100","authors":"Peter Bryan, Sabrina Mittermeier","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13559","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jacc.13559","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 2","pages":"95-96"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141368082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Show and biz: The market economy in TV series and popular culture (2000–2020) By María Blanco and Alberto Mingardi (Editors), Bloomsbury Publishing. 2023","authors":"Allison Lips","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13562","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jacc.13562","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 3","pages":"237"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141376507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy By Kliph Nesteroff, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 2021","authors":"Zachary Kizer","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13561","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jacc.13561","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 2","pages":"180"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141273621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Attraction adaptations of ride aesthetics in Disney Theme Park board games","authors":"Bobby Schweizer, Megan Condis","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13558","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13558","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 2","pages":"105-114"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141488501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“The Spirit of Aloha:” A history of how Disney theming performs Hawaiian and Polynesian cultures","authors":"Victoria Lantz","doi":"10.1111/jacc.13554","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jacc.13554","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44809,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE","volume":"47 2","pages":"115-123"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141488273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}