ONCE UPON A TIME

THE SOURCES OF INSPIRATION FOR THE DISNEY STUDIOS

ONCE UPON A TIME

THE SOURCES OF INSPIRATION FOR THE DISNEY STUDIOS

Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, September 16, 2006 – January 15, 2007

Pavillon Jean-Noël Desmarais The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts March 8 – June 24, 2007

PRESTEL Munich · Berlin · London · New York This exhibition was organized by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Design: Atelier Mendini, Milan Project management in Paris: Yves Kneusé, architect, DPLG Project management in Montreal: Sandra Gagné

General co-ordination and organization in Paris: Organization in Montreal: Réunion des Musées Nationaux Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Olivier Toche Bernard Lamarre Director of Cultural Development Chairman of the Board Magali Sicsic Nathalie Blondil Administrator of Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais Principal Curator Juliette Armand Paul Lavallée Head of Exhibitions Department Administrative Director Vincent David Pascal Normandin Project Manager, Exhibitions Co-ordinator, Exhibitions Jean Naudin Registrar Communications Christine Jéquel Registrar assistant Danielle Champagne Director of Communications

Communications Françoise Pams Director of Communications Cécile Vignot Head of Promotion Services and Media Partnerships Florence Le Moing Press Officer Advisory committee

Paris Francine Mariani-Ducray Director, Musées de Marcel Pochard Chairman of the Board Réunion des Musées Nationaux Thomas Grenon Director General Réunion des Musées Nationaux

Montreal Bernard Lamarre Chairman of the Board Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Guy Cogeval Director, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

General organizer Bruno Girveau Principal Curator, i/c collections of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Steering committee

Guy Cogeval Director, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Pierre Lambert Historian, animated films

Dominique Païni Director, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence This exhibition would not have been possible without the encour- We also owe a debt of gratitude to the directors of museums and agement of The Company. We are most grateful to collections whose numerous loans helped to make the exhibition France, Walt Disney Stu- possible. dios and the Walt Disney Animation Research Library, Walt Dis- ney Archives, and the Walt Disney Germany Photo Library for their practical advice and munificent loan of more than two hundred important works from their collections. Berlin Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin We should also like to express our sincere thanks to the private Cologne collectors who generously consented to loan works for the Fondation Corboud, Wallraf Richartz Museum exhibition: Düsseldorf Gemäldegalerie, Stiftung museum kunst palast Robin Allan Lucile Audouy Hamburg Gary Baseman Kupferstichkabinett, Kunsthalle Chris Beetles Gallery, St James’s, London Munich Trammell S. Crow Museum Villa Stuck Mrs Jos Decock-Restany Schack-Galerie, Neue Pinakothek, Walt Foundation Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Galerie Elstir, Paris Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Ronald Feldman Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montreal, New York Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds French & Company LLC, New York Jean Frumkin Rothenburg Galerie Hopkins-Custot Reichsstadtmuseum Mr and Mrs Michal Hornstein Stephen Ison Canada Alain Jacquet Montreal Rachel Laurent Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Jean-Jacques Lebel Rare Books and Special Collections Division, McGill University Mr and Mrs Paul Levy Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Montreal Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Ottawa Hervé Lourdel National Gallery of Canada Mrs Frédérique Loutz Modernism Inc., San Francisco USA Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries, London Claes Oldenburg and Mrs Coosje van Bruggen Brooklyn The Oudart-Reynaud family Brooklyn Museum of Art Mélik Ouzani Galerie Claudine Papillon Hammer Museum Jean-Michel Pradel-Fraysse Charles Solomon New York Valérie Sonnier Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University Marc Tugault, Affiche Vivante, Montreal Philadelphia Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia and all those who prefer to remain anonymous. San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts France Norway Besançon Oslo Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain de Franche-Comté National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design Carquefou Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain des Pays de la Loire Poland Cherbourg-Octeville Poznan Musée d’Art Thomas-Henry Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu Dunkirk Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain du Nord-Pas-de-Calais Sweden Limoges Stockholm Musée National de la Porcelaine Adrien Dubouché Nationalmuseum Lyons United Kingdom Musée des Beaux-Arts Leeds Nancy City Art Gallery, Leeds Museums and Galleries Bibliothèque Municipale Musée de l’École de Nancy Liverpool Art Gallery & Collections, University of Liverpool Nantes Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Musée des Beaux-Arts London Paris Tate Britain Bibliothèque, Institut de France Victoria and Albert Museum Bibliothèque du Film Bibliothèque Nationale de France Literature and Arts Department Performing Arts Department Philosophy, History and Human Sciences Department Prints and Photographs Department Rare Books Collection Centre de Création Industrielle, Musée National d’Art Moderne Centre Pompidou Equipment Collection, Cinémathèque Française Maison de Victor Hugo Médiathèque de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine Ministère de la Culture, Fonds National d’Art Contemporain Musée des Arts Décoratifs Musée Gustave-Moreau Musée d’Orsay Musée du Edmond de Rothschild Collection, Graphic Arts Department Paintings Department Quimper Musée des Beaux-Arts Rouen Musée des Beaux-Arts Strasbourg Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain

Acknowledgements

Since putting on such a singular venture as the Once upon a Time Walt Disney exhibition in a museum must inevitably give rise to questions and caveats, it is all the more imperative in my view to thank all those who have allowed it to take place. First I must pay tribute to Sophie Aurand, director general of the Réunion des Musées Nationaux from 2002 to 2004, who permitted the project to be launched. Thanks are also due to her successor Thomas Grenon, who unhesitat- ingly accepted and supported the exhibition, and Guy Cogeval, who provided valu- able and far-sighted support for the project both as an adviser to the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais’s program of exhibitions and as the director of the Mon- treal Museum of Fine Arts. I should also like to express my thanks to the teams at the Réunion des Musées Nationaux for their commitment and professionalism, especially the exhibitions department (first and foremost Juliette Armand and Vin- cent David, with the assistance of Christine Jéquel and Lora Houssaye), but also the communications department (notably Françoise Pams, Stéphanie Hussonnois, Cécile Vignot and Florence Le Moing), the management of the publishing side (first and foremost Catherine Marquet, Marie-Dominique de Teneuille and Con- suelo Crulci), Mateo Baronnet (design of the catalogue), Nathalie Barthès (editing) and the staff of the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais.

No exhibition of this kind could have been put on without the assistance of The Walt Disney Company. Having encountered among the French company’s officers and their teams a commitment and enthusiasm that never wavered, I would spe- cially like to pay tribute to Philippe Laco and Jean Poulallion. Another special debt of thanks for the huge generosity of their loans and the immense work they put in is owed to the team at the Animation Research Library, notably Lella Smith, Mary Walsh, Fox Carney, Ann Hansen, Doug Engalla, Kristen McCormick, Daryl Maxwell, Jackie Vasquez, Patrick White, Heather McLaughlin, Tamara Khalaf and Robert Tieman, manager of Walt Disney Archives.

The kindness of Diane Disney Miller (Walt Disney Family Foundation) and Ste- phen Ison in making valuable loans enabled us to complete our selection.

I would like to thank Pierre Lambert and Dominique Païni, co-organizers of the exhibition, for their irreplaceable assistance and their patience.

The exhibition also owes much to the extraordinarily stimulating contributions of Atelier Mendini for the design (Alessandro and Francesco Mendini), Alex Mocicka, along with Yves Kneusé and Sandra Gagné (project management).

I am also most grateful for the assistance of many other people whom I can only thank by including their names in the following list, with my apologies: Robin and Janet Allan, Marc Audouin, Jacques Aumont, Ruth Berson, Ute Collinet, Holly Crawford, Johannes Erichsen, Anna Foglia, Serge Garcin, Christine Hourdé, Clau- dine Kaufmann, Antonin Macé de Lépinay, Laurent Mannoni, Helmut Möhring, Hélène Moulin-Stanislas, Martin Muller, Peter Nahum, Emmanuelle Nobécourt, Herbert W. Rott, Nina Schleif, and Charles Solomon.

Bruno Girveau, General Organizer

Foreword

So great are the prejudices that continue to separate the worlds of high art and po- pular culture that the news that the Réunion des Musées Nationaux in Paris and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts were mounting an exhibition devoted to the work of Walt Disney must have been initially met with shock. Yet by examining his remarkable body of work, this exhibition, which took so long to prepare, demon- strates the profound links that exist between the two spheres of culture. It is not the aim of the curators and specialists who prepared this exhibit to retell the story of Walt Disney, which has already been the subject of so many publications. Their purpose is to present the iconographic sources that the Disney Studios’ artists drew on to create, under the direction of Walt Disney himself, the films that made his reputation—especially the ten features he made between 1937 and 1967, which incontestably rank among the masterpieces of animation. Many viewers already recognize that most of these films tell stories borrowed from European literature, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio to The Jungle Book. But they may not realize that the visual representations of the characters and settings in these films were not created from scratch, or from the visionary imagination of a single man, or from contemporary American comics, but were the clear descen- dant works of art in the canon of Western high culture. They may be surprised to discover that was inspired by both the castles of Ludwig II of Bavaria, and by the Louvre, as depicted in the illuminations in the 15th-century Book of Hours of the Duc de Berry.

Although Walt Disney’s films have become an essential part of popular culture, his artists borrowed widely—and liberally—from high culture, and a counter-borrowing in the opposite direction has also taken place. Another aim of this exhibition is to document that countercurrent with a selection of about thirty modern and contem- porary works inspired by the Disney Studios’ imagery. Once again, the visitor may be surprised to discover what may light-heartedly be called the changes in the crit- ical fortunes of some of Walt Disney’s cartoon characters, especially Mickey Mouse.

We should like to express our very sincere thanks to all the people who have taken part in organizing an exhibition that cuts a new path so intelligently away from the beaten track. This means first of all Bruno Girveau, who steered the project through and was bold enough to come up with the idea even before any American museum had envisaged the possibility of such an exhibition, together with his col- leagues Pierre Lambert, historian of animated films and acknowledged expert on Disney films, and Dominique Païni, director of the Fondation Maeght at Saint-Paul- de-Vence, who took on the delicate task of choosing the modern and contemporary works we mentioned earlier. Our thanks also go to Alessandro and Francesco Men- dini for their magnificent work in designing and implementing the exhibition so as to make the show what it is and add to visitors’ pleasure. Finally, we should like to express our wholehearted thanks to Robert A. Iger, President of The Walt Disney Company, Philippe Laco, President, and Jean Poulallion, Vice-President Strategic Marketing and Synergy of The Walt Disney Company France. Without their friendly collaboration and unstinting support for the exhibition project, it is clear that it would never have taken place. It remains for us to express the hope that the public will accord it the great success that it deserves, both in Paris and Montreal.

Thomas Grenon Guy Cogeval Director General Director Réunion des Musées Nationaux Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Contents

Walt Disney at the museum? ...... 15 Bruno Girveau

The collections and origins of the ARL ...... 37 Lella Smith

Walt Disney, the visionary of animated film ...... 61 Pierre Lambert

Training Disney artists: Don Graham and the ...... 79 Charles Solomon

Disney’s European sources...... 99 Robin Allan

Beyond the mirror: Walt Disney and literature and cinema ...... 171 Bruno Girveau

The nostalgic builder: Walt Disney, architecture and design ...... 207 Bruno Girveau

Dalí and Disney...... 237 Charles Solomon

Disney and Pop Art ...... 251 Holly Crawford

Reusing Disney ...... 265 Dominique Païni

Appendices ...... 285

Filmography ...... 286 Pierre Lambert

Biographies...... 294

Glossary ...... 316

Bibliography ...... 318

List of works...... 323

Index ...... 349

Walt Disney at the museum? Walt Disney at the museum? Bruno Girveau

If that question is being raised at the outset, it is because this exhibition project has occasionally been greeted with a puzzled smile. Indeed, how can one explain the admission of Walt Disney (1901–1966) and his group of characters, from Mickey to Mowgli, to the Grand Palais, a temple in which such undisputed masters as Nico- las Poussin, Édouard Manet, and Pablo Picasso have been celebrated these forty years? Regarded by some as a paragon of mawkishness and popular entertainment, by others as a storyteller of genius, Disney’s entry into the museum elevates him de facto to the ranks of great artists in the history of Western art, where some will undoubtedly fail to understand his presence. For the author of these lines the answer is, as one might expect, obvious and a firm belief: Walt Disney belongs alongside the most important figures of cinema and, more generally, 20th-century art. However, such a belief apparently needs to be defended, just as the exhibition of Walt Disney’s art and models has to be legitimized. Walt Disney’s tremendous suc- cess speedily consigned him to the ranks of mass culture, to the point where the extraordinary genesis of his artistic venture was obliterated. Even though he was not cultured and dreaded being mistaken for an intellectual, Disney possessed the

16 ...... Walt Disney at the museum? David Hall Alice in Wonderland, Alice after eating the mushroom that makes her grow larger, drawing 98, preliminary study 1939, pen and ink, watercolor, Burbank, , Walt Disney Animation Studios and the Animation Research Library curiosity and passion of the self-taught man. The culture he acquired of his own David Hall accord, heterogeneous though it was, inspired all his creations, while his artistic Peter Pan, Peter Pan and the children intuition often led him into terrain where you would not expect to find a director flying out of the window, 1953, pen and ink, watercolor, Burbank, of animated films. From the mid-1930s, Walt Disney gathered all the information California, Walt Disney Animation Studios he could on European artists whose style could be relevant to his projects. and the Animation Research Library And when his own skills were no longer sufficient, he had the intelligence to hire artists whose knowledge was far wider than his own, and who were for the most part immigrants from Europe: the Swiss Albert Hurter (1883–1942), the Swede (1896–1970), the Dane (1886–1957), the Hungarian Ferdinand Horváth (1891–1973), the Irishman David Hall (1905–1964), and the Englishwoman Sylvia Moberly-Holland (1900–1974). Almost all these artists were trained at European academies and brought with them not only technical mastery of their art, whether in painting, drawing, sculpture or illustration, but also the whole esthetic tradition and artistic heritage of their respective countries. And cer- tain American-born artists brought together by Disney were no less talented: (1908–2005), an admirer of Daumier and European art in general, Vladimir Tytla (1904–1968), of Ukrainian parentage, who left to train in the studio of Rodin’s pupil Charles Despiau, (1913–1992), (1911–1978), and

18 ...... Walt Disney at the museum? David Hall Alice in Wonderland, Alice falling down the rabbit hole, sequence 2, drawing 22D, preliminary study 1951, pen and ink, watercolor, Burbank, California, Walt Disney Animation Studios and the Animation Research Library

19 ...... Walt Disney at the museum? (1916–2000), a great expert on Early Flemish and Italian paintings. Mary Blair The personalities of these artists alone would help to explain the richness of Alice in Wonderland, Disney’s sources.1 nine preliminary studies Gouache, private collection In the 1920s, Disney’s first endeavors had been devoted to acquiring technical mas- tery of the art of the animated drawing. Perceptively, he had focused his attention on significant works and artists—the experiments of British-American photogra- pher Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) with locomotion and the inventions of Frenchman Émile Reynaud (1844–1918) in the field of animated images. After this phase of assimilating processes (throughout his life, Disney remained interested in technological innovation), he grasped the importance of European literature and children’s stories as inspiration for his shorts. With advice from his artists, he then began to acquire books—which from 1934 would act as the studios’ working library—while at the same time deciding to produce his first feature-length venture Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, based on the Brothers Grimm. He kept buying more and more books, until in summer 1935 he set off on a major trip around Europe. This visit had a decisive influence on the make-up of his treasure trove of material and the subsequent creations of the Disney studios. Together with his wife Lillian, his brother Roy, his sister-in-law Edna, and draftsman Bill Cottrell,

20 ...... Walt Disney at the museum? 21 ...... Walt Disney at the museum? Walt Disney spent eleven weeks in France, Italy, Switzerland, England, and Hol- Fantasia, Beethoven’s The Pastoral Symphony: land. It was actually during a program of his cartoon shorts at a Paris movie the- Flying cherubs ater—an unimaginable practice in the United States, where the cartoon short was 1940, graphite, white gouache, Burbank, California, Walt Disney Animation Studios still an interlude-filler—that he became convinced of the popular potential of ani- and the Animation Research Library mated feature films.2 The initial purpose of this long trip was to receive a special medal from the League of Nations, but Disney took the opportunity to buy nearly Philipp Otto Runge, Der Morgen [Morning] three hundred and fifty books, all of them for the Disney Studios Library: ninety in 1807, engraving, Hamburg, Kunsthalle, French, eighty-one in English, a hundred and forty-nine in German, and fifteen in Kupferstichkabinett Italian. His selection included all the great European illustrators of the day, thanks Philipp Otto Runge, Der Tag [Day] in part to the advice of Hurter and Grant: , Gustave Doré, Honoré 1807, engraving, Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Daumier, Grandville, Benjamin Rabier, Ludwig Richter, Wilhelm Busch, Heinrich Kupferstichkabinett Kley, Attilio Mussino, John Tenniel, Charles Folkard, and many others. Though Philipp Otto Runge, Der Abend [Evening] some of the library’s books were dispersed in 1986, several dozen—still kept at 1807, engraving, Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Walt Disney Imagineering’s Information Research Center in Los Angeles—are on Kupferstichkabinett display in the exhibition. The artists made extensive use of the studio library; Philipp Otto Runge, Die Nacht [Night] books were often seen on the drawing tables in the Studio. 1807, engraving, Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Perhaps during that same journey, Walt Disney acquired nearly two hundred draw- Kupferstichkabinett ings by the German artist Heinrich Kley (1863–1945), a painter and illustrator of

22 ...... Walt Disney at the museum? 23 ...... Walt Disney at the museum? UNVERKÄUFLICHE LESEPROBE

Bruno Girveau Once Upon a Time - Walt Disney The Sources of Inspiration for the Disney Studios

Gebundenes Buch mit Schutzumschlag, 360 Seiten, 23,0x30,5 246 farbige Abbildungen, 50 s/w Abbildungen ISBN: 978-3-7913-3770-8

Prestel

Erscheinungstermin: Februar 2007

Walt Disney gehört zu den wichtigsten Persönlichkeiten des Films und darüber hinaus der Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert. Das Ziel der Ausstellung und dieses Buches ist es, die Quellen, die die Welt von Disney inspirierten, aufzuzeigen und einige moderne und zeitgenössische Werke zu präsentieren, die von Disneys Schöpfungen abgeleitet sind. Insbesondere liegt der Fokus auf den literarischen und ikonografischen Quellen von Disneys wichtigsten Zeichentrickfilmen, von der Gründung der Walt Disney Company bis zu Disneys Tod im Jahre 1967.