People walk into an
exhibition of the Walt Disney Archives at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, the
United States, March 7, 2020.
LOS ANGELES, March 7
(Xinhua) -- A grand exhibition of the Walt Disney Archives was launched on
Saturday at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California, in celebration of 50
years of Disney history.
The exhibition, named
"Inside the Walt Disney Archives: 50 Years of Preserving the Magic",
features 465 items ranging from important memos to books to surveying tools
used to plan the first Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
It covers the history
of the company to date, with 218 original props and nine pieces of vintage
merchandise, including early hand-sewn Mickey and Minnie Mouse dolls.
The exhibition will
run through the end of August.
"The exhibit is
an exciting opportunity for Disney fans of all ages to view some of the special
treasures housed at the Walt Disney Archives, as well as discover what the
archives is and what it does within The Walt Disney Company," said Michael
Varge, vice president of corporate communications of the company.
The exhibition will
also include maquettes (production models) from the movies "Frozen"
and "Peter Pan" as well as super hero costumes, and sketches for
"Fantasia" and ghouls from the "Haunted Mansion"
attraction.
Varge said the
archives is Disney's historical repository, from correspondence to script
notes, from oral histories to personal effects, which has served as a vital
resource pool for historians and filmmakers for decades.
Peter Keller,
president and CEO of the Bowers Museum, told Xinhua that the museum expects to bring
to the public traditional art treasures, many of which have never been on
display before.
The museum has kept
close exchanges with its Chinese partners, including museums in the Chinese
cities of Nanjing, Xi'an and Kunming, according to Anne Shin, chairwoman of the
board of governors of the museum.