Skip Navigation
Created with Fabric.js 3.6.3

Burn With Desire: Photography and Glamour

January 21 – April 5, 2015
Main Gallery, The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre)
Curator: Dr. Gaelle Morel

From Edward Steichen’s iconic portrait of silent film star Gloria Swanson (1924) to Annie Leibovitz’s influential gatefold covers for Vanity Fair’s annual Hollywood issue (1995-2014), this multimedia exhibition offers a sweeping, yet considered view of photography’s role in defining glamour since the 1920s. Drawing on prints from The Image Centre's (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Black Star Collection of photoreportage and the holdings of George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, among other collections, Burn with Desire provides a historical and visual chronology encompassing Hollywood studio portraits as well as red-carpet and film set photographs. Additionally, a series of artistic projects, including works by Richard Avedon, Cindy Sherman, Mickalene Thomas, and Andy Warhol, demonstrate a more critical address of traditional ideals and representations of glamour.




Event(s):

Opening Reception
Wednesday, January 21
6:00 – 8:00 PM

Special Tour
Gaelle Morel
Wednesday, February 4
6:00 PM

Exhibition Tours
Daily 2:30 PM

All events take place at The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre), unless otherwise noted

Media sponsors

Toronto Life logo
Fashion Magazine logo
Toronto Star logo
A woman in a pink dress stands in a dark room smoking a cigarette
Fig. 1

Alex Prager, Touch of Evil (Mia Wasikowska), 2011, digital video still. Originally produced by The New York Times Magazine. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong

Glen Close wearing a crinoline dress and a silver headpiece
Fig. 2

Alex Prager, Touch of Evil (Glen Close), 2011, digital video still. Originally produced by The New York Times Magazine. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong

A woman in a white dress, pink hat, and thin scarf standing in front of a red car
Fig. 3

Alex Prager, Touch of Evil (Adepero Oduye), 2011, digital video still. Originally produced by The New York Times Magazine. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong

Marilyn Monroe in a black dress, smiling, at a formal event
Fig. 4

Gene Daniels, Untitled [Marilyn Monroe at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony], March 1962, gelatin silver print. BS.2005.190094/113-1201. The Black Star Collection, The Image Centre

Marlon Brando wears a suit in a dark alley
Fig. 5

Charles Bonnay, Untitled [Marlon Brando] May 1960, gelatin silver print. BS.2005.286005/188-478. The Black Star Collection, The Image Centre

Sophia Loren wearing a formal dress and necklace, a man plays a violin behind her
Fig. 6

Photographer unknown, Untitled [Sophia Loren], 1953, gelatin silver print. BS.2005.288948/194-117. The Black Star Collection, The Image Centre

Curator Bio

Dr. Gaelle Morel

Dr. Gaelle Morel is an art historian and Exhibitions Curator at The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre), Toronto, Canada. She received her PhD in the History of Contemporary Art from Universite Paris 1 – Pantheon-Sorbonne, France. Her research and recent work deal with the figure of the artist as author in French contemporary photography. She also works on the artistic and cultural recognition of the medium in the United States in the 1930s. She was, until 2013, a member of the board of the Societe francaise de photographie, and a member of the editorial committee of Etudes photographiques, a bilingual peer reviewed journal on the history of photography. She edited Les Derniers Tableaux. Photojournalisme et art contemporain (Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines, 2008) and co-wrote with Thierry Gervais La Photographie published by Editions Larousse in France (2008, 2011). She was a recipient of a Terra Foundation for American Art Travel Grant in 2007, for her work on the American art dealer Julien Levy who closely worked with Berenice Abbott in the 1920s and 1930s.

Installation Shots

6 brightly coloured portraits of Marilyn Monroe on a deep blue wall, pink script above reads "Burn with desire"
Fig. 1

Burn with Desire: Photography and Glamour (installation view), 2015 © Eugen Sakhnenko, The Image Centre

Black and white photographs in grey frames on a white wall
Fig. 2

Burn with Desire: Photography and Glamour (installation view), 2015 © Eugen Sakhnenko, The Image Centre

Large portrait of a woman on a brightly coloured couch, smaller black and white photographs framed on the wall beside it
Fig. 3

Burn with Desire: Photography and Glamour (installation view), 2015 © Eugen Sakhnenko, The Image Centre

Sponsors

Media sponsors

Upcoming Exhibitions

Fig.
Fig.