The Bloch Building is the only place in Kansas City where you will find The Beatles, Charlie Chaplin and Ernest Hemingway all hanging out in the same room. Well, portraits of them that is. In the Public Eye: Photography and Fame invites you to gaze at these and other well-known faces as envisioned by the likes of Irving Penn and Annie Leibovitz – both of whom have shot extensively for some of my favorite magazines, like Vogue and The New Yorker. But the exhibit closes June 15, so you will have to hurry.
The walls enclosing In the Public Eye comprise a veritable landscape of celebrities, authors, musicians, politicians and the list goes on. The two things each of these portraits have in common is, one, the subjects are famous and, two, the photographers are famous as well. And if you can recognize every portrait and photographer in the exhibit, you will be better off than I was. After a recent visit, I had to berate myself a bit for not knowing a few of the names noted on the white information cards, like early 20th century starlet Evelyn Nesbit (below) and famous portraitist Yousuf Karsh (note to self: Read more!!).
On one wall you will find a familiar aesthetic representation: A single shot displayed in a pattern of four that can only be Andy Warhol. An aged but still beautiful Lana Turner was his subject and Warhol meticulously sewed the four black and white photographs together with thread. Next door is a portrait of author William S. Burroughs as shot by Richard Avedon. In a very effective use of the rule of thirds, Avedon placed Burroughs to the extreme left of the photograph against a stark white background. I liked this photograph of Burroughs a lot for its simplicity and because his well-worn face (Burroughs is an older man in this photograph) draws you in. Burroughs' expression is almost as blank as the background and you wonder what he’s thinking about.
Another wall gives you a stunning portrait of Ernest Hemingway (top), circa 1957, shot by Yousuf Karsh. In this picture Hemingway definitely looks the way he feels (perhaps a bit sad and run down?) but he also exudes a remarkable larger-than-life persona, helped along by the fact that the portrait is the largest frame on the wall. Further down the wall are a couple of shots done by Irving Penn of Spencer Tracy and Duke Ellington, both shot in a bare corner of Penn's studio. Ellington's tall frame looks too big for the space, but the expression on his face says that his good nature makes him game for anything. Penn has always been excellent at bringing out his subjects' personalities through the use of simple framing techniques and that amazing photographer's "eye" of his.
Throughout the exhibit you will find Hedy Lamarr, Greta Garbo, and even Richard Nixon. Posed images are mixed with photojournalistic entries, one of the most memorable of these being a portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr (above). Photojournalist James Karales deviated from the more well-known repertoire of King images by giving us a charming view of the activist at home with his young daughter. King did a lot of great things for the Civil Rights movement in his public life, but it is this view of him in his private one that is the most powerful portrait of King I've seen yet.