Ray Harryhausen Collection

Ray Harryhausen, c.1957, with the original skeleton model seen in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

The personal collection of the world renowned master of special effects animation, Ray Harryhausen, will be deposited here at the Museum.

When film enthusiasts think of stop motion animation, Ray Harryhausen will always be one of the names at the top of the list. More casual film-goers – perhaps of a certain age – may not immediately recollect the Harryhausen name, but will often recall images of fighting skeletons, a writhing Medusa or a host of fearsome prehistoric creatures.

Ray Harryhausen is one of the key figures in the development of cinema animation. He blended a strong artistic vision with impressive technical abilities to produce some of the most memorable characters in stop motion history.

A Creative Life

Through his career, largely due to his 'one-man-band' style of working, Ray Harryhausen was able to retain the tools and creatures of his trade. This makes the collection of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation a remarkable and unusually comprehensive record of a creative life.

The collection will, of course, contain the iconic models: the skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts (1963), Pegasus, the mythological flying horse from Clash of the Titans (1981), and even a mini Raquel Welch from One Million Years BC (1966). However, it also contains concept drawings, which were often used to engender interest and gain finance for the projects, storyboard drawings, armatures used to give the models the ability to move, original moulds, posters for the films, the tools that were used to make the models plus awards and examples of the art which influenced Harryhausen's work.

Industry Respect

For many years, film makers and special effects artists have publicly acknowledged their debt to Ray Harryhausen. Peter Jackson, George Lucas, John Landis, Nick Park, Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton and Denis Muren (the effects wizard for Star Wars (1977), Terminator 2 (1991), War of the Worlds (2005) have all expressed their admiration.

"I always considered Ray Harryhausen's work so fine that it was out of my league: in terms of realism and naturalism, in terms of animal movement". Nick Park, April 2010.

A Significant Acquisition

This collection is one of our most significant acquisitions of recent times. It contains several thousand objects, making its relocation to Bradford a major task. Over the next five years the entire collection will be fully catalogued, photographed and packed ready for transportation in order to increase its accessibility. Once it is all here, as well as elements being publicly exhibited, it will be stored within our research centre under the appropriate environmental conditions to ensure it remains available for public enjoyment for as long as possible.

On Display

To mark this acquisition, a small selection of material from the Ray Harryhausen Collection will be on public display outside Insight: Collections and Research Centre (Lower Ground Floor, through the Kodak Gallery). These thematic displays will be refreshed every six months.
Find out more about the Ray Harryhausen display

The work of Ray Harryhausen can also be seen in our Animation Gallery.

Ray Harryhausen's official website
http://www.rayharryhausen.com