FAME

Throckmorton Fine Art is pleased to present a photography exhibit of portraits of famous men and women. Portraiture has a lengthy, rich, and diverse history in art. In our era, portraits of the famous have a pleasant association: they are familiar and frequently serve as cultural and temporal markers. These portraits, though, can be enigmatic, showing recognized faces but only hinting at complex personalities and the quixotic flow of fortune and tragedy. An effort has been made to exhibit images that are not well known (and some have, in fact, never been printed or publicly shown), in a bid to add something unexpected to what is otherwise familiar.
The exhibit will include 45 vintage portraits, nearly all in black-and-white, representing a wide swath of those ordained “famous”: royalty, political leaders, actors and actresses, and artists, musicians, and writers. Accomplished fine art photographers frequently take portraits, including “self-portraits,” and their work will be included, as well as the work of fashion photographers and photo-journalists. Portraits shown in the exhibit will range from an 1858 portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Matthew Brady, to a 1930s portrait of Marlene Dietrich by Cecil Beaton, to a 1940s portrait of Frida Kahlo by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, to a 1946 portrait of Ghandi by Margaret Bourke White, to a 1999 portrait of Liza Minnelli by Ruven Afanador. Others making an “appearance” include the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Brigitte Bardot, Theodore Roosevelt, D. H. Lawrence, Salma Hayek, Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brynner, James Dean, the Beatles, Kirk Douglas and Jean Michel Basquiat (with his cat).
The exhibit will serve as a testament to many of those who society has idolized over the past century. The exhibit will also offer, though, a window into the wide range of formats photographers have employed to capture the likeness of celebrated individuals.