When glamour really counted: Unseen images from the Golden Age of Hollywood show stars in a new light
By Sadie Whitelocks
Last updated at 1:15 PM on 8th July 2011
Before the era of the paparazzi, Hollywood stars would pose for glamorous portraits for their adoring public.
Today an astonishing collection of never before seen photographs, featuring iconic figures from the Twenties to the Forties, go on show in London.
Images of stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable form part of a new exhibition called Glamour of the Gods: Hollywood Portraits, which opens at the National Portrait Gallery.
Serenity: The luminous beauty of Elizabeth Taylor, in a 1948 portrait by Clarence Sinclair Bull, is on show at the Golden Age of Hollywood exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery
Organised by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the photographs come from the archive of the London-based John Kobal Foundation.
Images like these were instrumental in transforming actors into international stars. They were used as posters and postcards and still attract hordes of admirers.
This new collection of 70 photographs and prints will be shown alongside vintage film stills from classic movies including Lillian Gish in The Wind, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Swing Time and James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause.
John Kobal was an avid film historian and collector of Hollywood film photography. He donated his entire collection of negatives and fine art photographs to his foundation prior to his death in 1991.
Soft focus: Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in a photograph for Dancing Lady in 1933 by George Hurrell
He began collecting film photographs in the 1950s, visiting Los Angeles frequently where his interest began to shift to the photographers behind the portraits.
Film and art critic John Russell Taylor, who has written an overview of the project, said: 'Of John it can be said with certainty that he did something no one else had thought at that time to do.
'When he became interested in the men behind the images, almost all of them were still alive and reachable.
Magnificent: Marlene Dietrich on the set of Manpower in 1941 in a portrait by Laszlo Willinger. John Kobal was interested in the photographers behind the portraits
'But it was John who realised their importance, at a time when no one else gave a damn about them.'
The exhibition includes portraits by Davis Boulton, one of the few British photographers working for the Hollywood studios, and Ruth Harriet Louise, the only woman to run a studio photo gallery.
Often stars would build up a relationship with a photographer as was the case with Greta Garbo and Clarence Sinclair Bull, and with Joan Crawford and George Hurrell.
There is a range of events running in conjunction with the display including screenings of A Streetcar Named Desire, Gilda, Dancing Lady and Pandora's Box.
The exhibition will run from 7 July until 23 October 2011 in the Porter Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, London. For further information please visit www.npg.org.uk/glamour
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2012181/Unseen-images-Elizabeth-Taylor-Marilyn-Monroe-Audrey-Hepburn-display.html#ixzz1RXhsFWY6
