Group show
Face Value: Celebrity Press Photography
28 Jun 2025 — 21 Jun 2026 at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
· New York
Face Value invites us to take a close look at the celebrity-making machinery of the 20th-century Hollywood star system. For decades, film studios produced photographic portraits to promote the glamour of the actors they had under contract.
This exhibition examines how these images were manipulated for public consumption in the decades before digital tools, AI technology, and social media revolutionized the process. For MoMA's founding film curator, Iris Barry, building an archive of images that documented the history of motion pictures was second only to collecting films. Barry's initiative eventually led to the acquisition of editorial archives of two leading fan magazines, Photoplay (1911–80) and Dell (1921–76).
More than 60 photographers and filmmakers — from studio staffers to Andy Warhol — are represented in the exhibition, which combines untouched images with those that show evidence of the hands-on alterations that readied them for the press. Silhouetting, in-painting, masking, sectioning, and collage were applied not only to photographs of entertainers but also to those of sports figures, socialites, and politicians.
Highlighting the radical editing practices, stylized motifs, and gender stereotypes inherent in the studio system, this exhibition offers a demystifying look at the early constructions of celebrity.
This exhibition examines how these images were manipulated for public consumption in the decades before digital tools, AI technology, and social media revolutionized the process. For MoMA's founding film curator, Iris Barry, building an archive of images that documented the history of motion pictures was second only to collecting films. Barry's initiative eventually led to the acquisition of editorial archives of two leading fan magazines, Photoplay (1911–80) and Dell (1921–76).
More than 60 photographers and filmmakers — from studio staffers to Andy Warhol — are represented in the exhibition, which combines untouched images with those that show evidence of the hands-on alterations that readied them for the press. Silhouetting, in-painting, masking, sectioning, and collage were applied not only to photographs of entertainers but also to those of sports figures, socialites, and politicians.
Highlighting the radical editing practices, stylized motifs, and gender stereotypes inherent in the studio system, this exhibition offers a demystifying look at the early constructions of celebrity.
About the artist
Andy Warhol
1928–1987 · pop art
Andy Warhol was an American artist and filmmaker. Widely regarded as the most important artist of the second half of the 20th century, Warhol's practice spanned various media, including painting, filmmaking, photography, publishing, and performance art. A leading figure in the Pop art movement, his…
About the artist →About the venue
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
· New York
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture…
