On view December 2024–January 2025.
To celebrate the release of our new book, Walt Disney Treasures: Personal Art and Artifacts from The Walt Disney Family Museum, we are displaying rare and unique objects from the collection that are also featured in the book. Some of the artifacts showcased in the book and here have never been seen by the public. These objects will be on view for free in the museum’s Awards Lobby and will rotate periodically through the beginning of 2025. The second installation in this series celebrates the friendship between Walt Disney and Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí.
Salvador Dalí Watercolor Painting
After reading Dalí's autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, Walt sent his copy to the artist asking for not only his autograph but also a suggestion of a collaboration with The Walt Disney Studios. World War II would put a joint effort between the two men on hold, but in 1945, Walt engaged Dalí to design a surrealistic animated short segment to be part of a “package” feature. The segment was called Destino, the Spanish word for “destiny.” Starting in January 1946, Dalí spent his time between Pebble Beach, California, and The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California—drawing, writing outlines and treatments, clarifying his ideas, considering animation and live-action elements, and relentlessly working side-by-side with Disney personnel on this extraordinary collaboration. Over time, however, it became more apparent that there were differences in the two men’s approach to storytelling and by 1948, work would cease on Destino.
Despite the disappointing end of the Destino project during Walt’s lifetime, the friendship between Walt and Dalí endured through the coming decades. Walt adorned the walls of his Palm Springs home with Dalí’s paintings.
Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney spearheaded the completion of Destino, which released in 2003.
Salvador Dalí’s Inscribed Copy of Macbeth
Since the late 1930s, Walt had expressed interest in producing an animated version of Don Quixote. Both eternal optimists, he and Dalí shared the dream of working together to bring the classic epic tale to life. In Walt’s personal library, this 1946 edition of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth was found with an illustration by Dalí, which Dalí playfully signed with a drawing of Don Quixote. Accompanying the illustration, Dalí wrote, “Pour Mon Tres Cher Ami, Walt Disney Bonjour! Dalí,” which translates from French, “For my very dear friend, Walt Disney, good day!”
On a trip to California in 1951, Dalí visited Disney’s home and rode his one-eighth scale steam train, the Carolwood Pacific Railroad. That same year, interoffice memos and a Disney-issued press release announced that Don Quixote was going into production as a live-action film.
In 1957, Walt and his wife, Lillian, visited the Dalís in Portlligat, Spain, where they discussed Don Quixote and another of Dalí’s pet projects, the epic story of the medieval Spanish hero El Cid. Unfortunately, neither project was ever realized.