"Dreams Come True: Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio" Exhibit at NOMA

A while back I mentioned (HERE) there was a Disney Fairy Tale Art Exhibit making its way to New Orleans.

The exhibition is up and running (it opened on November 15, 2009) and will continue to show until March 14, 2010 at NOMA (The New Orleans Museum of Art).Here's an excerpt from the exhibit description by the museum:

Dreams Come True showcases original artwork from legendary Disney animated films, including Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, and will feature a children's section celebrating Disney's connections with jazz music and the Crescent City. The artworks, on loan from the Walt Disney Studio Animation Research Library, will be accompanied by film clips to demonstrate how individual sketches and paintings lead to a finished celluloid masterpiece. Organized by the Walt Disney Animation Research Library and the New Orleans Museum of Art, this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, which cannot be seen anywhere else in North America is set to coincide with the premier of Disney's upcoming animated feature, The Princess and the Frog, set in New Orleans during the 1920s Jazz Age.

And from the dedicated page:

The New Orleans Museum of Art will present Dreams Come True: Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio, a major exhibition featuring more than 600 original artworks that shaped legendary animated features including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. (Ed FTNH: as well as artwork from the December 2009 movie release The Princess and the Frog.)

... Visitors to the exhibition will encounter themed rooms showcasing artwork related to specific animated features. Arranged chronologically by year of release, the rooms will feature, in order: Silly Symphonies, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Princess and the Frog. Film clips will accompany the artwork to demonstrate how individual sketches and paintings lead to a finished celluloid masterpiece. An adjacent Education Area will highlight Disney's long association with music and also will serve as a mini library for animation research and storytelling programs.

You can read the rest of the description HERE.and there's a brief but interesting article about Lella Smith hosting a preview tour of the exhibit HERE. (Lella Smith is Creative Director of Disney's Animation Research Library. I posted excerpts from an interview with her HERE as well as links if you're interested in finding out more about her.).

There's no mention of Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Black Cauldron, Aladdin, Mulan or any of the shorter fairy tale related works in either of the Fantasia films or the separate shorts like Little Match Girl, so I'm guessing they're sticking with full-length feature films based on Grimm's and Perrault's work only.

There is a very interesting looking catalog of the exhibition available for purchase online HERE, by Lella Smith.Here's the blurb:

Dreams Come True: Art of the Classic Fairy Tales from the Walt Disney Studio
by Lella Smith

This beautifully illustrated catalogue presents familiar fairy tales and the adaptations made by the Walt Disney Studio for the movies. The films span 80 years- from the early Silly Symphony shorts to the 2009 release of The Princess and the Frog.

The comparative tales would be very interesting and this is likely to be a collector's item in the future. Even if you can't make it to the exhibition before mid-March next year, this may be a nice thing to think about buying.

NOTE: All the Sleeping Beauty art shown is by legendary Disney artist Eyvind Earle. You can read more about him and his work HERE.