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At The Walt Disney Family Museum, we have a dedicated team of Preparators that utilize creative ways to display artwork in our galleries and special exhibitions. Preparator Ryan Mortensen works primarily with 2D objects, creating custom displays for the public to enjoy our collection of animation artwork.

In October of 1966, Walt Disney was declared “Showman of the World” by the National Association of Theatre Owners. His creative legacy was so diverse, spanning so many realms of entertainment and outdoor recreation, it’s remarkable to think that before 1955 he was “merely” a producer of motion pictures...

While he did not live to see it completed, many Disney fans know that, at the time of his passing in 1966, Walt Disney was working on plans for what would later become Walt Disney World in Florida. What is not so well known is that he was concurrently planning a year round family resort in the Sierras known as Mineral King.

Hide in plain sight.

As a student of Disney history I have come to embrace that particular cliché. Simple and almost always overlooked details in Disney entertainment can often lead to very enjoyable and enlightening journeys of historical discovery. I recently embarked on such a journey after watching the Goofy cartoon The Art of Skiing...

While the world turns its attention towards the thrilling events taking place in London, we at The Walt Disney Family Museum cannot help but to look back in time fifty years to the 1960 Winter Olympics for which Walt Disney served as the Chairman of the Pageantry Committee.

The Walt Disney Family Museum presents Animate Your Night—a new Museum-wide monthly after-hours party. Experience the galleries in a whole new light and illuminate your imagination with music, performance, film screenings, and hands-on art activities!

After years of making package features that compiled animated short subjects, Walt Disney’s artists knew that Cinderella, released 70 years ago in 1950, would be different. As a full-length fairy tale, it was more akin to the stories they’d told before World War II. But the film would have a twist on its predecessors.

This multiplane camera was unlike anything ever used before at Walt’s studio, and in particular it was a favorite tool on his second feature film, Pinocchio (1940). Learn more about the foremost and often celebrated use of the multiplane’s wondrous ability in sequence two of Pinocchio, “Goes to School.”

Watch any Disneyland fan walk into the park, and you’ll see their eyes glance up to the left just before they reach Main Street, U.S.A. Walt Disney’s apartment sits nestled above the Town Square Fire Station, easily invisible to those who don’t know of its existence, while remaining an iconic part of Disneyland to those who do…

Need something to do while you are stuck inside? We have compiled ten articles exploring legendary Disney Imagineers for you to read.

Devoted family man Walt Disney sometimes laughingly observed that he was outnumbered at home. Surrounding him were his wife, two daughters, his devoted cook and, as Walt wryly noted, even the family dogs were female. Perhaps the predominance of women in the Disney household is one reason Pollyanna appealed to the great showman, due to its strong female characters.

When Walt Disney decided to adapt Eleanor Porter’s novel Pollyanna into a live-action feature film, he needed to find the perfect location for Harrington, the turn of the century town that Pollyanna would forever transform into “the glad town.” Walt found the rural charm he was looking for in Santa Rosa, California, and in the surrounding Sonoma and Napa Valleys...

I can't remember how old I was when I read Pollyanna, but I do know that it was one of my favorite books.