Hollywood Stars Close-up at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery

Versión en español

Hollywood personalities who once graced theater marquees across America are featured in original cover art commissioned by Time magazine. “Hollywood and Time: Celebrity Covers” will showcase 32 artworks from the National Portrait Gallery’s Time collection that will probably conjure a fond memory or two of a special movie-theater experience—one filled with laughs, tears, frights and buttered popcorn.

Opening April 1, this exhibition includes vintage portraits of stars like Marlon Brando, Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster, Dustin Hoffman, Diane Keaton, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, Robert Redford, Sylvester Stallone, Meryl Streep, Barbra Streisand, Elizabeth Taylor and Robin Williams, as well as Oscar-winning directors Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen.

Since its founding in 1923, Time magazine has reported on a seemingly endless number of newsworthy people and events including Hollywood, the glitzy epicenter of American cinema. While Hollywood movies became ever more sophisticated with advancing technologies, the one constant has always been the actors and actresses.        

This exhibition will be on view from April 1 through Sept. 11 and has been compiled by James Barber, historian and curator of the Time collection.

April 5 marks the 100th birthday of Gregory Peck, and the National Portrait Gallery will recognize the anniversary by displaying his portrait by Everett Raymond Kinstler. Peck’s oil-on-canvas painting will be on view in the museum’s “Celebrate” wall from April 1 to April 10.

Also, Sunday, April 3, the Portrait Gallery will show a double feature of Peck films: To Kill a Mockingbird and A Conversation with Gregory Peck. The screenings will include an introduction from Portrait Gallery historian Kate Lemay and a discussion of the latter film by the film’s producers, Barbara Kopple and Linda Saffire, along with Cecilia Peck, the legendary actor’s daughter. 

The Portrait Gallery will have a media photo op around his portrait Monday, April 4, at 10 a.m., with Cecilia Peck.          

Reel Portraits: Gregory Peck

Sunday, April 3; 2 p.m.

Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium

Two films honoring Peck’s 100th birth anniversary: To Kill a Mockingbird at 2 p.m. and A Conversation with Gregory Peck at 4 p.m.

National Portrait Gallery

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the multifaceted story of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the American story.

The National Portrait Gallery is part of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture at Eighth and F streets N.W., Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Information: (202) 633-1000. Website: npg.si.edu. Connect with the museum at @NPG, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr.

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SI-153-2016