Beginning this Sunday, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will present “Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs From 1913-2008” in the only American stop on the exhibition’s international tour. The show gives attendees a break from celebrities as seen through the eyes of the paparazzi, and features 130 works by influential photographers who shot for the magazine. Photographers include Cecil Beaton, Man Ray, and Edward Steichen from the early days (1913 to 1936), as well as those who captured public figures for contemporary editions of the magazine (which relaunched in 1983), like Annie Leibovitz and Mario Testino. Vintage prints of significant cultural figures such as Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Katharine Hepburn, and Gloria Swanson are presented alongside current icons such as Bill Clinton, George Clooney, and Julianne Moore, who posed as a harem girl in Michael Thompson’s photographic re-creation of Ingres’s famous painting "La Grande Odalisque." Visitors can also watch video projections of shoots in progress. Group tours generally require a minimum of 20 people and last 30 minutes, and the exhibition's softbound 256-page catalog ($49.95) makes for a suitable gift option. The show runs through March 1.
