Director/Writer/Illustrator/Artist, Tim Burton has a way of making even the darkest things seem magical.  From making a man with scissor hands to recreating a wonderland for Alice, Burton has bestowed upon us 27 years of awe-inspiring magic and art.  

Starting on November 22^nd,  you can see Tim Burton’s magic and art as MoMA presents Tim Burton,  a major retrospective exploring the full scale of Tim Burton’s career, both as a director and concept artist for live-action and animated films, and as an artist, illustrator, photographer, and writer.  The exhibition will be at MoMA until April 26, 2010 and will bring together over 700 examples of sketchbooks, concept art, drawings, paintings, photographs, and a selection of his amateur films.  Tim Burton is the Museum’s most comprehensive monographic exhibition devoted to a filmmaker.  Not only does MoMA’s exhibit have never-before-exhibited drawings, paintings, and film props, it also contains virtually unseen films including Burton’s 1983 live-action, Asian-cast adaptation of Hansel and Gretel, and early student films.  An original animation of MoMA’s logo conceived by Burton and produced by Mackinnon & Saunders, is on view in the Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Lobby.  If you cannot make it to the exhibit or NYC, don’t worry, you can view Burton’s original animation of MoMA’s logo here.

The film retrospective Tim Burton presents Burton’s entire cinematic oeuvre of 14 feature films,eleven of which are in MoMA’s film collection. These 14 feature films—Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Planet of the Apes (2001), Big Fish (2003), Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)—will be screened over the course of the five-month exhibition in the Museum’s Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, along with his early short films Vincent (1982) and Frankenweenie (1984).

This is the perfect exhibit for any art, film, and/or Tim Burton fan.  Burton has visually stunned audiences for years and now the audience has a chance to literally dive into his world. 

For more information on MoMA’s Tim Burton, please visit MoMa’s website.