The Metropolitan Museum in New York is planning a major Disney exhibit

An upcoming exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City will focus on how the European arts and French motifs of Rococo Paris inspire some of Walt Disney Studio's main features and theme parks. Entitled "Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts," the collection is heralded as the Met's first exhibition exploring the work of Walt Disney and the Disney studio. It is scheduled from 10 December 2021 to 6 March 2022.

The official description reads: "Pink castles, talking sofas and a prince turned into a teapot: what appear to be fantasies from the pioneering animations of Walt Disney Animation Studios were actually the inventions of the colorful living rooms of Rococo Paris. Forty works of decorative arts and design. 150th-century Europeans, from tapestries and furniture to Boulle clocks and Sèvres porcelain, will be showcased alongside XNUMX production works of art and works on paper from the Walt Disney Animation Research Library, Walt Disney Archives, Walt Disney Imagineering Collection and the Walt Disney Family Museum. Selected films will also be shown illustrating the studios' extraordinary technological and artistic developments during the lifetime of Disney and beyond. "

The exhibition will highlight references to European visual culture in Disney animated films, including nods to neo-Gothic architecture in Cinderella (1950), medieval influences on Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Rococo-inspired objects brought to life in The beauty and the Beast (1991). The event marks the 30th anniversary of The beauty and the Beastrelease in animated cinemas.

For more information, visit metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2021/inspiring-walt-disney.