Academy Museum Adds Pre-Cinema Collection

Lebende Bilder, Animation Disc for Phenakistiscope, c. 1840. Richard Balzer Collection, gift of Patricia S. Bellinger. Photo by Joshua White/JW Pictures. ©Academy Museum Foundation

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and the Margaret Herrick Library have jointly been given the pre-cinema collection assembled by Massachusetts-based documentary photographer and consultant Richard Balzer (1944-2017). A smaller group of over a hundred objects is being donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 

Rated the most comprehensive of its kind, the Balzer collection traces the precursors of modern motion pictures, from Ming China to the early 20th century. Included among its 9000 objects are shadow puppets, anamorphoses, optical illusions and toys, magic lanterns, peepshows, and zoetropes. Want a cut-out that casts a shadow portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau? The Balzer collection has one. A steam-powered praxinoscope? Check.

A Rousseau shadow-maker (Dutch, c. 1830) and a conical anamphorphosis, 1700s (the revealed words are Dutch for "Expect even better")

Ernst Plank, Steam-Driven Praxinoscope with Animation Strips, c. 1904. Richard Balzer Collection, gift of Patricia S. Bellinger. Photo by Joshua White/JW Pictures. ©Academy Museum Foundation

Edmé Bouchardon, L'orgue de Barbarie, 1737. Richard Balzer Collection, gift of Patricia S. Bellinger. Photo courtesy the Margaret Herrick Library

A 1737 etching of a magic lanternist is among the earliest depictions of a woman in the media biz. It's part of sculptor Edmé Bouchardon's series of prints of Parisian street vendors. Magic lanterns were topical enough to inspire later paintings by Nicolas Lancret and Giandomenico Tiepolo.

The Balzer gift becomes the second major pre-cinema collection in L.A. In 1993 the Getty Research Institute acquired much of the collection of German filmmaker Werner Nekes. At the Academy Museum the Balzer collection will be featured in an inaugural exhibition in the permanent collection galleries, "The Path to Cinema: Highlights from the Richard Balzer Collection."

The Balzer collection has a website with many images. A good place to start is this Tumblr post with hypnotic GIFs of zoetrope disks. 

Johann Falk, Magic Lantern, 1895. Richard Balzer Collection, gift of Patricia S. Bellinger. Photo by Joshua White/JW Pictures. ©Academy Museum Foundation