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| Invitation to Citizen Kane wrap party, 1940. Academy Collection, image courtesy of the Margaret Herrick Library. James Pepper Collection on Orson Welles |
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced numerous additions to its 52-million-item collection. Among them is Santa Barbara bookseller James Pepper's gift of his collection of Orson Welles material, assembled over half a century. Shown is an invitation to
Citizen Kane's wrap party, addressed to Mercury Theater actor Paul Stewart. The Pepper collection includes photographs, press clippings, and books; two hand-annotated scripts to
Touch of Evil; correspondence relating to
The Magnificent Ambersons,
Othello, and
The Other Side of the Wind; a grievance-filled 11-page letter (1977) to producer Medhi Bousherhri, lamenting the trials of a 62-year-old Hollywood wunderkind and outcast.
Also new to the Academy collection are a Lumière Model A film projector, about 1897; James Cagney's tap shoes from Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942); the bicycle from Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985, a gift of Paul Reubens).
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| Bicycle from Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985). (c) Academy Museum Foundation, gift of Paul Reubens. Photo: Joshua White/JWPictures |
Comments
Now in 2026, a well-known movie producer is planning to open his art museum in Exposition Park while LACMA is transitioning from a tract-house campus to a Public-Storage campus.
As the saying goes, God does have a sense of humor.
metmuseum .org: In 1921 [Lousie and Walter] Arensbergs moved to Hollywood. While far from the art world’s epicenter in New York, the couple continued to be actively involved by lending to exhibitions and acquiring artwork....Their collection...grew to include one of the largest holdings of Cubist art at that time.... The couple presented the collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1950.
--- J. Garcin.