J.B. Kaufman is an author and film historian who has published extensively on topics including Disney animation and American silent film. He is the author of
The Fairest One of All, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Art and Creation of Walt Disney's Classic Animated Film, South of the Border with Disney, and coauthor, with Russell Merritt, of
Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney (winner of the Kraszna-Krausz Award and the Society for Animation Studies' Norman McLaren-Evelyn Lambart Award, and chosen by
The New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year), and
Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies. He has also been a regular contributor to the Griffith Project at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the distinguished annual silent-film festival in Pordenone, Italy, and speaks frequently on Disney, silent film history, and related topics.
The Walt Disney Family Museum, owned and operated by the Walt Disney Family Foundation, opened in 2009 in San Francisco. Co-founded by Walt's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, and grandson, Walter Miller, the museum celebrates the genius and spirit of Walt Disney, a risk-taker whose artistry, imagination and vision influenced popular culture through animated and live-action films, television programs, theme parks and new technologies. Walt's contributions live on today in the museum's exhibits and education programs, which share the fascinating story of the man who raised animation to an art, transformed the film industry, tirelessly pursued innovation, and created a global, distinctively American legacy.