A Sneak Peek Inside the Walt Disney Family Museum: Gallery 4, the First Animated Motion Picture

Continuing our series into the galleries at the new Walt Disney Family Museum, we are pleased to present to you some of the artifacts that can be found in Gallery 4: The Move to Features: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Having redefined the art of animation, Walt dares to produce a feature-length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. During the four years that it was in development, Disney and his brother Roy secured six-figure loans – each loan enough to finance an entire movie – time after time, and skeptics called the film “Disney’s Folly.” Disney brought in an art instructor to work with his team and insisted that the animators study live models and animals. The studio created a Character Model Department, which constructed small sculptures of characters which let animators study characters in the round. Snow White premiered on December 21, 1937, and Disney won a unique Academy Award™ for the innovative movie: a standard-sized Oscar™ and seven miniatures.

Original art from Snow White, three-dimensional model figures, magazines of the period, audio clips, and a wide array of related 1930s merchandise will help recreate the story of Disney’s pioneering effort to produce Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

All images © Disney Enterprises, courtesy of the Walt Disney Family Museum

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