In celebration of The Walt Disney Family Museum’s 15th anniversary, fans can now bring home the ultimate souvenir – a deluxe coffee table book appropriately titled Walt Disney Treasures: Personal Art and Artifacts from The Walt Disney Family Museum. Distributed by Weldon Owen (an imprint of Insight Editions), the book was written by museum co-founder, board president, and Walt Disney’s grandson, Walter E.D. Miller, in collaboration with the staff of the non-profit museum in San Francisco’s historic Presidio.
(Disney/Weldon Owen)
This photo-rich keepsake is divided into eight sections, similar to how the museum invites guests to step through Walt Disney’s life and achievements through themed galleries. The pages are color-coded, making it easy to jump to a desired section. While it’s by no means an all-encompassing look at everything The Walt Disney Family Museum has to offer, it serves up a lot of interesting information that helps paint a picture of Walt Disney, the dreamer who founded one of the most successful entertainment companies in the world. In many cases, the information given for each item is more detailed than guests get from reading plaques when they visit The Walt Disney Family Museum, which really helps to enhance the combined experience.
The first section of the book is “Heart,” containing items that were foundational to Walt Disney’s personal philosophies. Here, readers will find many photographs from Walt Disney’s life, as well as treasured keepsakes like his marriage certificate to his wife Lilian and items gifted to him from his employees. Disneyland fans will also find details here about Walt’s childhood in Marcelline, which served as his nostalgic inspiration behind Main Street, U.S.A.
The “Determination” showcases how fearless Walt Disney was in the face of obstacles. It contains some of his earliest drawings, mementos from his Red Cross service during World War I, some of the earliest known drawings of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse, as well as one of the earliest renderings of Disneyland. And this segues well into a section called “Inspiration,” a showcase of how other artists helped inspire Walt Disney. Among the most unique artifacts in this section are pieces of art made for Walt by the likes of Salvador Dalí and Norman Rockwell, as well as pieces he commissioned from his own artists, Disney Legends Peter Ellenshaw and Herb Ryman.
Readers who are more familiar with Walt Disney through his work will find the next two sections, “Animation” and “Innovation,” to be more in line with the upstairs galleries of The Walt Disney Family Museum. Here, fans will find plenty of animation treasures that give a peak into the creative process behind the earliest Disney shorts and animated features. The “Innovation” section highlights all of the ways Walt Disney Productions pushed the boundaries of filmmaking, including the multiplane camera, optical printer, and Herman Schultheis’ notebook (an entire book is devoted to its contents, which I recommend as follow-up reading).
The book celebrates Walt Disney’s hobbies in a section called “Creativity,” which showcases Walt Disney’s collection of miniatures in great detail. It also showcases one of his most well-known fandoms, his love of trains, through elements of his backyard one-eighth-scale ride-on train. And it celebrates some of the sports he played through items related to polo and lawn bowling.
The color coding on the first six sections follow the order of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet), but the final two sections are fittingly silver and gold – “Imagination” and “Legacy.” The “Imagination” section dives deeper into Walt Disney’s boundary-pushing pursuits into themed entertainment, including artifacts from Disneyland (including the original lamp from his Main Street apartment) and items related to his last great dream, EPCOT. “Legacy” showcases some of the incredible honors Walt Disney received in his lifetime, including honorary college degrees, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and, fittingly for the museum’s location, Walt’s Key to the City of San Francisco.
Walt Disney Treasures: Personal Art and Artifacts from The Walt Disney Family Museum is a wonderful examination of Walt Disney’s life and legacy through the immense collection on display at The Walt Disney Family Museum. It’s the ultimate souvenir, enhancing your experience with even more details and information about what’s on display, and also serves as a primer for anyone who plans, or dreams, of going someday. Walter E.D. Miller’s preface beautifully grounds the museum’s story into the “Family” aspect of its name, with Walt Disney’s descendants continuing to celebrate their namesake and to help ensure that we never lose sight of one thing – it was all started with a man – Walt Disney.
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