On view June–Early August, 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 next installation in this series celebrates the significant contributions of Harper Goff.
This scrapbook created by Harper Goff contains artwork for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), the film adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1870 science fiction classic. Goff worked as the art director of the film, which Walt had originally viewed as inspiration for an underwater True-Life Adventures documentary. Instead, Goff reimagined the source material as a live-action adventure film, and while Walt was initially skeptical, he warmed to the idea as he studied Goff’s vivid storyboards. Goff developed the striking exterior appearance of the Nautilus, the submarine helmed by Captain Nemo, in addition to the vessel’s interiors. The film’s production costs would eventually top $9 million, driven in part by a complete re-shoot of the sequence in which a giant squid—controlled via puppeteering—attacks the Nautilus. That budget made 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea the most expensive film produced by The Walt Disney Studios—and among the most expensive films put to screen—at the time. Ultimately, the film was a success, earning over $28 million at the box office and winning Academy Awards® for Art Direction (Color) and Special Effects in 1955. In addition to his work as an art director on films, Goff created concept artworks and developed attractions for Disneyland and his banjo playing was a regular fixture of The Firehouse Five Plus Two—the Ward Kimball-led jazz band populated by Disney studio personnel. Goff was inducted as a Disney Legend shortly after his passing in 1993.
