Volume 45, Number 11 · June 25, 1998
Funny Faces
By John Updike
Celebrity Caricature in America April 10-August 23, 1998.
by an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., Catalog of the exhibition by Wendy Wick Reaves
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution/Yale University Press, 306 pp., $45.00
A caricature can be a beautiful thing; the ambitious, ingenious, and slightly anxious exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, Celebrity Caricature in America, emphasizes the sociology of celebrity, and mingles the remarkably beautiful work of Al Frueh, Miguel Covarrubias, Ralph Barton, and William Auerbach-Levy with that of a score of artists a shade or two less absolute to produce a plethora. Everything is done to make the show intelligible and appealing to the multitudes who never heard Caruso sing, followed Babe Ruth's exploits, saw John Barrymore in a play or Mae West in a movie.
Review, 2771 words
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