The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is bringing the community a bit of old-school Hollywood glamour by featuring the work of leading film costumer Edith Head in its latest exhibit, opening to the public Saturday. The exhibit, “Edith Head: Hollywood’s Costume Designer,” organized by OKCMOA and presented by The Ann Lacy Foundation, features a treasure trove of movie history from throughout Head’s decades-long career that began at Paramount Studios in the 1920s, including 70 original costumes, screening areas and more. Visitors will see the actual costumes worn by actors and actresses like Audrey Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Fontaine, Veronica Lake, Natalie Wood, Fred Astaire, Bob Hope, Angela Lansbury, Grace Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Shirley MacLaine, Hedy Lamarr and may others.
It also includes Head’s sketches, details about her artistic process and three of Head’s eight Academy Awards for Costume Design – for the 1949 movies “The Heiress, for which she won in the black-and-white category, and “Samson and Delilah” (or which she won in color; and for the 1951 black-and-white movie “A Place in the Sun.” What I also loved in the media preview on Thursday were the photographs accompanying the costumes of the actors wearing them in the movies, so it was easy to visualize the time, place and the ideas that Head was trying to convey in her work. Guest curator Catherine Shotick said that Head had a knack for listening to those involved in the mo.