Academy Museum Of Motion Pictures Receives Richard Balzer Collection, World’s Foremost Group Of Pre-Cinema Artifacts

AMPAS Giving new meaning to the word museum, the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is going back, waaaay back, with its latest acquisition the Richard Balzer Collection , which just by its sheer breadth will fill in most of the blanks that actually led to the creation of what we now know as cinema. Academy Museum In conjunction with the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, the Academy Museum said Tuesday that it is the recipient of the collection, widely considered to be the world’s foremost collection of pre-cinematic optical toys and devices. It comprises more than 9,000 objects from magic lanterns and magic lantern glass slides to prints, praxinoscopes, figurines, paintings, peepshows, shadow puppets and theaters, among much more. Some of it dates as far back as China’s Ming Dynasty. Balzer died in 2017 and his unique collection was donated by his widow Patricia S. Bellinger who currently is chief of staff and strategic advisor to the president of Harvard University and is a member of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. Patricia Bellinger said, “Gifting this collection to the Academy is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. My husband Dick’s passion for collecting pre-cinematic objects was profound, but it was his passion […]

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