The other Tim Burton

Although Tim Burton is primarily known as a film director, he is also an accomplished illustrator, painter, photographer and writer. Here, we draw up a portrait of this decidedly atypical artist.

The artist…

The MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York quickly picked up on Tim Burton’s multi-faceted relationship with art, and is currently staging a high-profile exhibition dedicated to the director. It will run until the end of April 2010 and features over 700 drawings, paintings, photographs, storyboards, puppets, miniatures, costumes, videos about his work, and much more. Most of the items have never been displayed to the general public before. The museum is also broadcasting a complete retrospective of all of his films, including a handful of shorts.
Very recently, the most complete anthology covering forty years of Tim Burton’s artistic output was published.
Over the course of several chapters, The Art of Tim Burton (Steeles Publishing) presents preliminary drawings for his films and hundreds of personal projects from his own collection, all edited by the director himself.
He uses a range of materials and methods to bring his characters to life, giving free reign to his artistic inspirations. When we look at his drawings, we half-expect them to come to life before our very eyes, slipping off the page to enjoy whatever exciting adventures lie ahead…

The storyteller and writer…

If Tim Burton has one instantly recognisable quality, it is his art of telling stories. Not content to stop at making films, he released a collection of illustrated poems and short texts in 1997 in the book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories (originally published by Rob Weisbach Books, 1997).
He narrates, with his usual humour, the stories of several macabre children in this book: solitary, strange and singular creatures, they are isolated from everyone and are yet remarkably similar to us all…Stick Boy and Match Girl in Love, Robot Boy, Voodoo Girl, Jimmy, The Hideous Penguin Boy: an array of odd anti-heroes who should horrify us but who, ultimately, win our hearts. What do we recognise in them? Perhaps that’s what the art of Tim Burton is all about: seeing the monsters of our childhood through a more human lens.

BOOKS AVAILABLE:

• The Art of Tim Burton, Limited Edition, by Steeles Publishing, January 2010.
   
• Burton on Burton, edited by Mark Salisbury – Foreword by Johnny Depp, Faber & Faber, 1995
   
• The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories by Tim Burton, originally edited by Rob Weisbach Books, 1997.

Credits :  Pastel on paper Private collection. (American, b. 1958) Untitled (Creature Series). 1997-1998 © 2009 Tim Burton / Drawings by Tim Burton from the book « The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories » / Drawings by Tim Burton (untitled) for The art of Tim Burton.