Gallery’s ‘virtual experience’ for special effects pioneer Harryhausen
An art gallery is to make an exhibition devoted to one of Hollywood's best-known special effects artists available to his fans all over the world after being forced to close its doors due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art has turned its Ray Harryhausen tribute into a “virtual experience” after spending years working on the exhibition with the legendary moviemaker’s family.
A £10 pass, which is available from today, will offer unlimited access to the online incarnation of the exhibition, which explores how Harryhausen inspired cinematic legends like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Peter Jackson thanks to his groundbreaking work on Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the T itans, Earth vs the Flying Saucers and the Sinbad series.
They will be able to secure glimpses of rarely-seen models, drawings, sketches, photographs, posters and storyboards drawn from the archives of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation, which is run by the family of the Californian-born special effects legend and his wife, who both passed away in 2013. The couple developed a strong affinity to Scotland as Mrs Harryhausen was the great-great granddaughter of the Scottish explorer David Livingstone.
One of his final projects was to design a statue of the legendary missionary for his birthplace at Blantyre, Lanarkshire.
A series of short films has been created for the exhibition, featuring Scottish comic book writer Mark Millar and special effects expert Randy Cook.