To photographers and graphic designers, Getty is best known as a purveyor of stock photos. They however also have a public art gallery, where some of the less stock-like stock photos are put on display.

The latest exhibition charts the rise of the photograph as a tool of Hollywood to sell a myth about the actors as great as the roles they often played on film.

The start of the exhibition is however not a Hollywood icon, but a Brit — one of the famous photos of Isambard Kingdom Brunel in characteristic top hat and cigar. The earliest days of photography as media manipulator had arrived.

A lot of the photographs on display are however of the 1930s icons, some with brief notes – person x in location y – but many with descriptions of why the photo is notable.

As much as Hollywood tried to control the official portrait image of the celebrity, they also controlled the “unguarded moments” as well, with some photographers permitted behind the scenes access, which showed a very different image, albeit one that was still controlled.

Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster — relaxing with a floral china cup daintily held in one hand. The monster with a kind heart, which is not far off how the Monster was originally written by Shelley.

The controlling arm of Hollywood wasn’t restricted to the moment the photos were taken, but also to the post photography airbrushing of human traits. One dramatic image shows a jazz player before and after, and a good 10 years younger with US-perfect teeth miraculously restored.

In more recent years, the public hunger to peer behind the curtain has led to the rise of the paparazzi, and the decline of staged photography. The glamour has faded, as have the celebrities themselves.

We have vast numbers of z-list celebs cluttering up the tabloid papers, and will probably never grace the walls of an art gallery in the future.

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Gods and Monsters is on at the GettyImages Gallery until 22nd August. Open Mon-Sat. Entry is free.

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