Showing posts with label Robert Lemieux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Lemieux. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 01, 2022

Bruce Guthrie on "Icons of American Animation" in Westminster, Maryland

 by Bruce Guthrie

I went to Westminster, Maryland to visit the new "Icons of American Animation" exhibit which is spread over two different venues there.  The exhibit opened on January 3rd and runs until March 12th.

The main portion, about 60% of the 150+ pieces, are at the Carroll County Arts Council’s Tevis Gallery.  This gallery's largest chunk are Disney pieces (although, like the other sections, there are Disney pieces in both galleries).

The other portion is at the Esther Prangley Rice Gallery at McDaniel College.

The two galleries are 0.4 miles apart and you can easily walk between them.  I parked for free at the college, visited the gallery there, and then walked to the Council's gallery.  Both exhibits are free.

Both venues offer the free 32-page color exhibition pamphlet which includes images of all of the pieces in the exhibit as well as some of the wall text.

The exhibit includes original sketches and animation cels dating back to 1914.  That earliest piece is a sketch from Winsor McCay's "Gertie the Dinosaur" which most of us keep thinking is America's first animated cartoon.  In actuality, McCay himself had earlier made "Little Nemo" (1911) and "How a Mosquito Operates" (1912) and there were some earlier animation experiments done earlier by others. Wikipedia bills the cartoon as "the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur."

Another McCay piece, a panel from his "The Sinking of the Titanic" (1918) is also included.



There is an amazing array of pieces here.  When I was walking between the venues, I was promoting the exhibit to strangers on the street and a Westminsterite lit up and asked if there were any pieces by Ralph Bakshi in the show -- he especially loved "Fritz the Cat".  Well, yes.  There is a cell from that as well as from Bakshi's "Wizards".

To give you an idea of some of the pieces you'll see by decade:

  • 1910s: The two Winsor McCay pieces.
    Curator Robert Lemieux
  • 1920s: Oswald the Rabbit, Steamboat Willie, Out of the Inkwell
  • 1930s: Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Betty Boop, Gulliver's Travels, Flowers and Trees (Disney), The Band Concert (Disney), Porky's Duck Hunt
  • 1940s: Fantasia, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad, Bambi, Superman (Fleisher), Bambi, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, Red Hot Riding Hood (Tex Avery), Mighty Mouse
  • 1950s: Gerald McBoing-Boing, Rooty Toot Toot, Mr. Magoo, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Huckleberry Hound, Crusader Rabbit, Rocky & Bullwinkle, 101 Dalmatians, Tom and Jerry, What's Opera Doc, Road Runner Show
  • 1960s: The Jungle Book, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, The Pink Panther, Charlie Brown, George of the Jungle, Droopy
  • 1970s: The Aristocats, Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear, Wizards, Fritz the Cat, Horton Hears a Who, The Phantom Tollbooth
  • 1980s: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, The Smurfs, Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, The Simpsons
  • 1990s: Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan, Mulan, Rugrats, Toy Story 2, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Ren & Stimpy Show
  • 2000s: Shrek

Obviously, as cartoons increasingly became computer-generated, you're not going to see original cels so the latter years are mostly represented by concept art or storyboards.  The latest piece, for example, was a city design painting from "Shrek" (2001).  One of the pieces (a model sheet) was a lithograph but everything else was original.

Since there are two venues, you'll want to time your visit so you can see both of them in the same trip.  Of course the venues have different hours but here's a combined schedule -- don't go on Wednesday or Sunday!:

  • Monday: Rice 10-4pm, Council 10-4pm
  • Tuesday: Rice 10-4pm, Council noon-7pm
  • Wednesday: Rice 10-4pm, Council ---
  • Thursday: Rice 10-4pm, Council noon-7pm
  • Friday: Rice 10-4pm, Council 10-4pm
  • Saturday: Rice noon-5pm, Council 10-4pm
  • Sunday: Rice ---, Council ---

The exhibit's official home page is https://iconsofanimation.com/  The news release about the exhibit: https://www.mcdaniel.edu/news/major-exhibition-curated-communication-professor-highlights-artistic-and-cultural-significance

I of course did my normal photo obsessive thing, spending about 90 minutes at each venue and some of my photos are below.  My pages for the exhibit:

Both venues require masks but not proof of vaccination.  During my visit, there were two other people seeing the Rice exhibit and three at the Council gallery (two of them being the same two from the Rice exhibit) so social distancing was easy.