Jim Henson show coming to Museum of Moving Image

A traveling exhibition on Jim Henson, the innovative puppeteer and creator of imaginative works from Sesame Street and The Muppet Show to Fraggle Rock and The Dark Crystal, will come to the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, this summer.

The museum said yesterday that the exhibition, “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World,” will open on July 16 and run through Jan. 16, 2012; it will feature more than 120 works, including drawings, props and, of course, puppets from a career that spanned some 35 years.

“It really shows that the Muppets didn’t just come out of nowhere,” Cheryl Henson, a daughter of Henson and president of the Jim Henson Foundation, said in a telephone interview. “Between 1954 and 1969 alone, there’s 15 years of experimentation there. It’s inspiring for people to see that you don’t become successful immediately. You have to try many, many things.”

The traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian and the Jim Henson Legacy features original puppets like Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, and Bert and Ernie (as well as Mahna Mahna and the Snowths, for the hardcore Henson fans). And visitors can trace Henson’s career from his 1950s Washington television puppet series Sam and Friends to the making of films like The Muppet Movie and Labyrinth.

Beyond her father’s best-known work, Ms. Henson noted that the exhibition also included such oddities as his never-produced designs for a nightclub called Cyclia; elements from an experimental short film called Time Piece; and commercial artwork Henson created for posters and jazz album covers.

The Museum of the Moving Image said it was planning special programming on Sept. 24, which would have been Henson’s 75th birthday, as well as other events including an anniversary screening of a restored 35 millimeter print of Labyrinth.

(Via ArtsBeat)