With piercing gazes and razor-sharp cheekbones, the actresses of early Hollywood, as captured in black-and-white portraits, were definitive images of heady pre-war glamour. And yet, status as an eternal muse proved exhausting. “I have been photographed to death,” admitted the actress Marlene Dietrich. Tallulah Bankhead added, “They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.” As norms shifted, women were not only the camera’s object of desire, some began to take the pictures (paging Lee Miller). There was Eve Arnold in the midcentury, and then photographers like Annie Leibowitz and Jillian Edelstein took the baton, shooting portraits that suggested a celebrity’s inner life without compromising their public persona. “I think it is important to respect your subjects, to seek permission,” Edelstein has said. “I feel uncomfortable when there is no collaboration—I make better images when the process is interactive.” A new exhibition traces female contributions to celebrity portraiture, placing contemporary work alongside their Golden Age prototypes. —Maggie Turner