From Catwoman to Corpse Bride: 600 items from the world of Tim Burton come to the Design Museum
The Design Museum today reveals for the first time the highlights of its major autumn exhibition on the exceptional career of director Tim Burton.
From October, visitors to the museum in west London will be invited to step into The World of Tim Burton and to journey through five remarkable decades of creativity. Today the famed and fascinating objects which will be seen are announced — from Tim Burton’s earliest unrealized projects to his most recent film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024).
Over 600 incredible items will be brought together in the exhibition to chart the evolution of Burton’s unique design aesthetic. Objects are loaned from Tim Burton’s extensive personal archives, key film studio archives including Paramount, Amazon MGM Studios, and Warner Bros., and the private collections of Burton’s collaborators. Many items have never been on public display in the UK before.
Highlights will include hundreds of Burton’s expressionistic sketches and drawings that he has created prolifically since childhood. These will be seen alongside props, set designs, and costumes from his iconic films, including Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman costume from 1992’s Batman Returns and the black and white striped dress from 1999’s Sleepy Hollow, worn by Christina Ricci.
The World of Tim Burton — which will open on 25 October 2024, just in time for Halloween — will showcase Burton’s remarkable output, with
over 18 of his films individually spotlighted in the exhibition. It will celebrate the creative processes behind some of the most significant movies of the past five decades, including Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).
The exhibition comes to London after a hugely successful decade-long world tour that has seen it visit 14 cities in 11 countries since 2014. Yet not only will this be the first and only time it will be seen in the UK, it will also be the very final time the exhibition will be staged. For this very special homecoming — to Tim Burton’s adopted home city — it has been specially adapted, expanded, and physically reimagined for the Design Museum.
Visitors will for the first time be able to take a deeper look at the director’s work by seeing it through a design lens. With the addition of over 90 new objects to the exhibition, this iteration of the show will examine Burton’s hands-on and design-led approach to filmmaking.
A major aspect will also be the spotlighting of his long-term collaborations with designers working across costume, set and production design. This includes the renowned costume designer Colleen Atwood, production designer Rick Heinrichs, architect and designer Anton Furst, and the award-winning puppet makers and stop-motion animators Mackinnon and Saunders.
The exhibition’s narrative has also been fully reimagined for the Design Museum.
Visitors will begin in ‘Suburban Beginnings’, charting Burton’s early artistic endeavours, his studies at college, and his time working as an apprentice animator at Disney. Visitors will then move from the Hollywood suburb to the Hollywood Studio and into ‘Crafting Imagination’, exploring his immense contributions to stop-motion animation and those themes which have influenced his work, like festive holidays and the ‘Carnivalesque’.
‘Building Worlds’ celebrates thirteen key feature films and the television series Wednesday through the lens of design, while the section ‘Drawing Narratives’ will display a volume of artwork that illustrate Burton’s prolific output as an artist and visual storyteller.
Finally, ‘Beyond Film’ moves from the world of Tim Burton to the universe, exploring projects he has produced outside of cinema, like books and music videos, and designers who have been inspired by the Burtonesque, such as photographer Tim Walker.
The exhibition will immerse visitors into specific landscapes reminiscent of his filmography — from the suburbs to angular corridors and film soundstages –– all accompanied by a custom soundscape created especially for the Design Museum by sound designer Tomi Rose.
Tim Burton says: “It’s a strange thing, to put 50 years of art and your life on view for everyone to see, especially when that was never the original purpose. In the past, I have resisted having the exhibition in London, however, collaborating with the Design Museum for this final stop was the right choice. They understand the art, and with the opportunity to adapt the show and highlight the way design interacts with the works, I’ve been able to view it all through an exciting new lens.”
Exhibition highlightsAt the exhibition’s core will be hundreds of Tim Burton’s expressionistic sketches and drawings that he has prolifically produced since childhood. These works depict everything from individual characters to whole environments and are always the first step in Burton’s creative process to build the fantastical worlds in each of his films.
Visitors will see some of the earliest incarnations of much-loved and recognised characters such as the Martians from Mars Attacks! (1996), the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland (2010), Emily in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (2005), and many other famous eye-catching figures. Nearly all of these drawings will be making their first ever public display in the UK.
The original artworks will be seen directly alongside costumes, props, and set pieces from the movies they ultimately featured in, charting the journey characters and worlds have taken from Burton’s imagination to cinematic reality. This includes Colleen Atwood’s instantly-recognisable costume for Edward Scissorhands — as worn by actor Johnny Depp in the 1990 film — which will be seen with Bo Welch’s set design models for the movie, Stan Winston’s infamous scissor hands, and seven of Burton’s earliest sketches of the character.
Another iconic costume added to the exhibition for the first time for this final London staging include Catwoman’s rubber and latex suit from 1992’s Batman Returns, featuring the stitched motif that Burton repeatedly returns to throughout his works.
There will also be the first ever public display of the Rave’N dance dress worn by actor Jenna Ortega in character as Wednesday Addams in the Netflix series produced by MGM Television which debuted in 2022. The school uniform for the series, designed by Atwood, will also be shown, paired alongside Burton’s original character concept drawings.
Visitors will additionally be able to see a recreation of the private studio where Tim Burton works, giving a rare private glimpse into his creative process. The walls of this installation will be lined with illustrations from recent projects, including designs for a 65m high mural depicting an epic battle between a robot and a monster that was installed in São Paulo, Brazil.
The exhibition’s finale will be a brand new specially created cinema experience. A major newly-commissioned film will give voice to some of Burton’s key collaborators, and will be shown in a bespoke art-deco space reminiscent of the theatres he would frequent as a child growing up in Hollywood.
Maria McLintock, curator of The World of Tim Burton at the Design Museum, says: “For Tim Burton, each film begins with a drawing, that he often returns to over time, almost like old friends. We’re thrilled to be displaying so many of these deeply personal works at the Design Museum this autumn, in the heart of the city he’s called home for over twenty years. This hugely successful show has delighted audiences across the globe for over a decade, but our Design Museum reimagining, with many new additions and new narratives, means this will be an unprecedented opportunity to be immersed in Tim Burton’s unique and singular vision.”
Tim Marlow, Director and CEO of the Design Museum, says: “During his extraordinary career, Tim Burton has harnessed a compelling mixture of gothic horror and black comedy, of melancholy and enchantment, of oddball whimsy and visionary range in the creation of fantastical filmic worlds. Our exhibition will explore his remarkable creative vision, subtly reframed through the lens of design, and give visitors a new perspective on a cinematic master.”
To accompany the exhibition, the Design Museum will publish a brand-new in-depth book Tim Burton: Designing Worlds. This will be the first publication to explore the relationship between Tim Burton’s cinematic creations and the world of design. Featuring an exclusive new interview with Burton, essays by Imogen West-Knights and Ryan White, and interviews with collaborators like Colleen Atwood and Mackinnon & Saunders, the book is available for pre-order now.
The exhibition is organized by Jenny He, Independent Curator, in collaboration with Tim Burton and adapted by Maria McLintock for the Design Museum.
The World of Tim Burton is presented in partnership with Harvey Nichols. To celebrate the exhibition and its new partnership with the Design Museum, Harvey Nichols will unveil a Burtonesque Christmas window display later this year. It will feature five unique objects from Tim Burton’s private collection, previously showcased in his exhibitions around the globe.