At MoMa: It's Alive!
- Redazione
- Jul 24
- 3 min read
August 1, 2026 – Summer 2027
MoMA exhibition explores New York's animation history through more than 200 works from the museum's film collection
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presents It’s Alive! A Century of Animation from the Collection, a major exhibition exploring the history of animation in New York through the work of more than 35 artists and filmmakers, most of whom worked in the city and helped shape the evolution of the medium during the century preceding the digital revolution.
Opening on August 1, 2026, the exhibition brings together more than 200 works, including animation drawings, production materials, and films from the Museum's collection, created between 1908 and 2020. Featured artists include Jane Aaron, John Canemaker, Sally Cruikshank, Tissa David, Jerome Hill, Candy Kugel, Emily and Faith Hubley, David Ehrlich, George Griffin, Jeff Scher, and Michael Sporn.
Running alongside the exhibition, a film retrospective will showcase animated short and feature films, including works by the artists featured in the exhibition as well as other animators represented in the MoMA collection. Details of the screening program will be announced at a later date.
The exhibition is curated by Ron Magliozzi, Francisco Valente, Katie Trainor, and Cara Shatzman of MoMA's Department of Film, with contributions from Seth Mitter, Alma Macbride, and Joseph Shepherd of the Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center.
"Animation has been one of the most popular artistic mediums since the birth of cinema. At MoMA, its creative evolution has been documented through more than one hundred film programs and the continuous acquisition of works by both major studios and independent filmmakers," said Ron Magliozzi. "It's Alive! celebrates the roots of animation in New York and demonstrates how the city has remained a vital center for innovation, profoundly influencing popular culture. The exhibition also reflects the Museum's commitment to documenting New York's filmmaking practices and cinema culture while highlighting a generation of artists who transformed animation into a powerful form of personal expression."
The exhibition places particular emphasis on the work of individual animators, highlighting both their distinctive artistic styles and the practices they shared. The exhibition opens with some of the most iconic black-and-white characters of the silent film era—Felix the Cat by Otto Messmer, Koko the Clown by Dave Fleischer, and Gertie the Dinosaur by Winsor McCay—demonstrating the fundamental role of character-based animation in establishing the popularity of the medium.
Alongside these works, pieces by Isadore Sparber, Mary Beams, Kathy Rose, Tissa David, and David Ehrlich illustrate how black-and-white line drawing remained a central expressive language throughout the pre-digital era.
The exhibition also traces the introduction of color, which became the industry standard in the 1930s, and the modernization of animation design led by John Hubley in the 1950s.
Also on display are materials created for the television program Sesame Street and rare artwork from the iconic "I Want My MTV" promotional spots, featuring artists such as Cyndi Lauper, David Bowie, Lionel Richie, Madonna, Hall & Oates, and Culture Club.
Other highlights of the exhibition include works by Lotte Reiniger, Len Lye, Émile Cohl, Hans Richter, Oscar Grillo, Lou and Morey Bunin, and Robert Brotherton. The exhibition also marks the premiere installation of Philip Stapp's illustrated scroll Interstices, a Silent Fugue (1992), an artwork that traces one of the earliest origins of animation to the tradition of the Chinese painted scroll.
Informations:
It's Alive! A Century of Animation from the Collection
1 august 2026
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
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