Tim Burton was born in Burbank, California in 1958. He is an internationally recognized film director, but also has a significant career as an artist. His black-and-white pencil drawings that form a Cartoon Series were created while working at Disney in the early '80s, the pieces take an off-center position to skewer common turns of phrase and situations with the anarchy of Mad magazine. His sketches from the early '90s of Edward Scissorhands and Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas, for example, are elegant and beautiful, the emotional gravity of the socially marginal characters captured through simplicity, empathy and expressionism. Burton's work expands artistically throughout the '90s, moving beyond what he terms "cheesy sketches" into something closer to fine art.

New York’s Museum of Modern Art held a Tim Burton exhibit featuring sketches, concept art, and a career retrospective of the director through three separate galleries. Among the works on display were Burton's drawings, paintings, storyboards, digital and moving-image formats, puppets and maquettes, props, costumes, ephemera, sketchbooks and cartoons.