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What cool looks like
WASHINGTON — James Dean is leaning back, drawing on a cigarette, looking away from the camera as a mirror behind him in the black-and-white photograph creates a shadow image of a good-looking young man who, even in a quiet moment, seems remote, resistant to what’s expected of him.
He’s cool.
But who else is? What does it take? And what is it about America that’s defined cool to the world?
The National Portrait Gallery has decided it knows, and on Friday it opened the exhibit “American Cool,†with 100 photographs of American men and women who define cool.
Portraits of three Texans made the cut: iconic entertainers Willie Nelson, from Abbott, and Selena, from Lake Jackson, and boxer Jack Johnson, from Galveston, who became the first African-American to win the world heavyweight championship.
“ ‘American Cool’ is about America’s greatest cultural export — cool — and who embodies it,†Kim Sajet, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, said at the media preview for the exhibit.
During his brief life, Dean created a new American icon — the rebellious teen — in the stifling atmosphere of the 1950s. He defined himself in the film Rebel Without a Cause, his most-celebrated role, before dying in 1955 at age 24 when his Porsche crashed.
And being cool, according to this exhibit, is very much tied to being a rebel.
WASHINGTON — James Dean is leaning back, drawing on a cigarette, looking away from the camera as a mirror behind him in the black-and-white photograph creates a shadow image of a good-looking young man who, even in a quiet moment, seems remote, resistant to what’s expected of him.
He’s cool.
But who else is? What does it take? And what is it about America that’s defined cool to the world?
The National Portrait Gallery has decided it knows, and on Friday it opened the exhibit “American Cool,†with 100 photographs of American men and women who define cool.
Portraits of three Texans made the cut: iconic entertainers Willie Nelson, from Abbott, and Selena, from Lake Jackson, and boxer Jack Johnson, from Galveston, who became the first African-American to win the world heavyweight championship.
“ ‘American Cool’ is about America’s greatest cultural export — cool — and who embodies it,†Kim Sajet, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, said at the media preview for the exhibit.
During his brief life, Dean created a new American icon — the rebellious teen — in the stifling atmosphere of the 1950s. He defined himself in the film Rebel Without a Cause, his most-celebrated role, before dying in 1955 at age 24 when his Porsche crashed.
And being cool, according to this exhibit, is very much tied to being a rebel.
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