Made in Hollywood: Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation

These stars would sit for portraits for each film, sometimes in costume and sometimes wearing stylishcontemporary fashions. These portraits would be used to advertise the upcoming film in newspapers andmagazines. Many of the portraits in this exhibition appeared in one of the dozens of fan magazines that werewidely circulated from the 1930s to the 1950s.1920sThe film industry's studio system was well established by the 1920s, but it was with the release of The Jazz Singerby Warner Bros. in 1927, the first full-length film with synchronised dialogue, that the 'talkies' heralded in whatbecame known as the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood.1930sIt was during the 1930s that the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood really began, and when the studio system created andcontrolled the stars now associated with the period. The introduction of sound-mixing resulted in advancedscripts in a wide range of genres, such as screwball comedies and gangster films, and by the end of the decade thefirst films were released in Technicolor, most notably Gone with the Wind (1939).1940sThe early 1940s were defined by World War II to which the studios responded with a realistic rather than escapisttone, of which Casablanca (1942) remains a classic. The decade is now closely associated with the 'film-noir' genrewhich began with The Maltese Falcon (1941).The Hollywood studio system reached its profitable peak during the mid-1940s but the decade ended with manyof their practices declared illegal, and key figures were blacklisted during the witch-hunt investigations conductedby the House of Representatives' Un-American Activities Committee.1950sThe 1950s saw the decline of the Hollywood studio system and the decade was remarkable for cynicalretrospection in films such as All About Eve (1950) and Sunset Boulevard (1950), and for remakes of 'Golden Age'films including the popular An Affair to Remember (1957). Technical advances, and the threat from television, led tothe production of spectacular historical epics such as Ben Hur (1959) as well as colourful, escapist musicalsincluding Singin' in the Rain (1952). Conversely, the decade also saw the rise of anti-heroes and heroines and a shifttowards naturalistic 'method' acting on screen.Images1. Rock Hudson for Lover Come Back, Universal. Leo Fuchs2. Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire for Swing Time. John MiehleAll images courtesy of John Kobal Foundation, LondonOrganised by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CaliforniaThis exhibition is indemnified by the VictorianGovernment through Arts Victoria