- Finster’s “Baby Elvis”
Elvis has entered the building — the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, that is. Okay, technically the King won’t make his grand entrance until after the new year when “One Life: Echoes of Elvis” opens on Presley’s 75th birthday, January 8th, 2010. The one-room exhibit “devoted to the evolution and influence of Presley’s image after his death” will feature work by Robert Arneson, Ralph Wolfe Cowan, William Eggleston, Red Grooms and Howard Finster, as well as the original artwork for the U.S. Postal Service’s commemorative stamp created by Mark Stutzman. It’s the first of two shows organized by the Smithsonian slated to open next year. “Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer,”a traveling exhibition, featuring images of a young musician on the cusp of superstardom hits the road on October 30th, 2010.
“Elvis at 21,” will showcase a series of candid shots commissioned by RCA shortly after Elvis signed to the label. They document the last relatively normal moments in the singer’s life.
Not too shabby for a greasy hoodlum whose swiveling hips were once viewed by many as the ruination of everything America stands for.
UPDATE: “Elvis at 21” actually opens on January 8, 2010 at the new Grammy Museum in L.A. and moves into the National Portrait Gallery on Oct. 30. Vanity Fair is devoting a 7-page spread to the exhibit in its January issue.
