Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: An Art in Its Making featuring The Collection of Stephen H. Ison

by Martin F. Krause, Linda Witkowski, Stephen Ison (Foreword)

Walt Disney's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: An Art in Its Making', now a Disney Miniature, captures on the printed page the words and images that first passed so fleetingly on the screen more than half a century ago. Generations of moviegoers have been captivated by this classic film.

'Snow White' began as a risk worth taking. Never before had so many artists assembled to meld their talents to the creation of a new world of visual entertainment -the first animated feature film.

This book retells the classic story of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' and the equally compelling history of its making. It reunites a trove of its rare, surviving original conceptual and production art from the incomparable private collection of Stephen H. Ison. From the opening approach to the evil Queen's castle to the final awakening of Snow White with a kiss from her true love, each illustrated drawing freezes in time an image that had its momentary but indelible existence on the screen.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Reference, Animation

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 1994

About the author

From LOC: asst. curator of prints and drawings, Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Reviews

[Richard Gray]

There have been many volumes written on the making of Walt’s folly: the first Disney animated feature. This might be one of the smallest. Released as a miniature inside of a DVD set about two decades ago, it serves as a nice supplement to the documentaries and commentaries that can be found on the discs themselves. Primarily based on the collections of Stephen H. Ison, who has privately collected many of the original sketches and art pieces associated with the film, the book may not provide any new information to the faithful. Especially if, like me, you read this alongside three other films about the making of the movie. Still, it’s a great collectors’ piece that allows us to see so much of this art in one place. For a deeper dive, I recommend J.B Kaufman’s The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (2012).

[Elliot Richards]

This book doesn't go in depth on the details of the film so it's quite superficial in that regard; it's all about the art. If you're looking for details, this isn't the book. However, if you've come for the pictures, it's great to see lots of artwork in different states on this production; amazing to see how it all came together so long ago, which gives me a new found appreciation for the animated film today.

[Camila Caro]

Nunca fui fan de Blancanieves, de hecho, es la que menos me gusta de las princesa, pero, si en algún momento la llego a ver de nuevo, problablemente la disfrute más al haber leido este mini libro y sabiendo todo el trabajo que hubo detrás.

[Josh]

This definitely isn’t the most informational book on the making of snow while and the seven dwarfs. However it does include incredible background art and character sketches from Disneys first full length animated feature.

[Kayleigh]

It is a small book with wonderful art from the movie. Snowwhite has a special place in my heart.

[Vampira!]

De este libro, solo puedo decir cosas buenas; ya que es mi primer libro de la infancia, con él aprendí a leer cosas de dibujo que a los 5 años no comprendía muy bien ❤️‍🩹

[Meaghan Steeves]

I REALLY appreciated the amount of production cells and artwork that was included in this book. However, I would have preferred for there to have been just a little more writing on the production of it. It was quite informative for being such a little book and I was glad to have read it for it taught me some new things about the film and animation that I had been wondering about.

[Bex]

Included with Snow White on DVD this shows the images from one mans Snow White art collection. It uses them along with sound bites from historic interviews to show how the film was produced from story boards through background art to inked cels.
A short but interesting look at the work involved.