The Gender Show

The exhibition will feature over 130 photographs from the George Eastman House collection, spanning the nineteenth century to the present, by a wide range of artists including Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Steichen, Nickolas Muray, Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Andy Warhol, Barbara Norfleet, Mary Ellen Mark, Cindy Sherman, and Chuck Samuels. Self portraits by artists, sometimes in disguise, are a small but essential part of the exhibition, as are photographs of leading actors such as Sarah Bernhardt, Marlene Dietrich, Douglas Fairbanks and Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Lily Langtry, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and Arnold Schwarzenegger—in time, each was a paragon of his or her gender, or of androgyny.

The Gender Show sets the stage for a lively discussion of both photographic and cultural conventions and can be enjoyed by a variety of audiences for both its subject matter and content. Those interested in material, visual, and popular culture; gender, identity, and equality; and photographic history will find this exhibition captivating.