Tim Burton
New York, The Museum of Modern Art

Tim Burton is known as a film director and producer yet this extensive retrospective of his 27-year career brings to light his creative force as a conceptual artist, fiction writer, photographer, illustrator and highly inventive mind (however fantastically morbid).

In the most comprehensive monographic exhibition devoted to a filmmaker, MoMA unites over 700 examples of sketchbooks, drawings, paintings, photographs – even a selection of his amateur Super 8mm films from the 1970s shot in neighborhood backyards and starring childhood friends. Further ephemera include sketchbooks from his studies at CalArts, and a series of over 50 cartoons Burton drew in pencil on animation registration paper between 1980 and 1986, while working at The Walt Disney Studios.

Burton’s career blossomed with the success of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), and Edward Scissorhands (1990) which was also a time of exciting collaborations, such as in costume and puppetry, that are also documented in the exhibition from the private collections of collaborators. The retrospective is accompanied by screenings of films directed by Burton as well as films by others that influenced his aesthetic.

November 22nd, 2009 through April 26th, 2010
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019-5497
T. +1 212 708 9431
www.moma.org