Hundred Heroines launches Stardust
The free exhibition Stardust: 100 years of stage, screen and celebrity opens at Hundred Heroines in Nailsworth, showcasing portraits by women photographers
Stardust: 100 years of stage, screen and celebrity, a new exhibition at Hundred Heroines in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, explores how women photographers have shaped the image of fame over the past century. The free exhibition opens on 11 September 2026 and runs until 20 November 2026 in the charity’s new and expanded space.
It features portraits of Hollywood icons such as Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead and Marlene Dietrich alongside music legends like Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin from the Elisabeth Buchmeyer Lewis archive, some shown publicly for the first time. Contemporary figures including Yoko Ono, Vivienne Westwood, Amy Winehouse, Helena Bonham Carter, Kate Moss and Sandra Oh are portrayed by Jillian Edelstein, the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient of Amateur Photographer magazine.
The exhibition is a collaboration between Hundred Heroines and Sisters of the Lens, drawing on the museum’s growing collection of original prints by early 20th-century European photographers such as Lallie Charles, Dorothy Wilding and Madame D’Ora. These images reveal how studio portraits helped construct celebrity identities circulated globally through magazines and publicity campaigns.
Del Barrett, curator and founder of Hundred Heroines, describes the show as a celebration of the remarkable women who photographed famous faces of the twentieth century. She says it offers a chance to share hidden gems from the archive and marks the perfect opening for the new gallery.
Hundred Heroines is the UK’s only museum and charity dedicated to women in photography, with a mission to bring overlooked women photographers back into public view. By placing celebrated subjects alongside the women behind the lens, Stardust continues this initiative.
Jillian Edelstein says exhibiting alongside pioneers like Lallie Charles and Madame D’Ora has been an honour. Her portraits aim to reveal the humanity behind the celebrity mask, showing subjects as more than their fame or hype.
The exhibition is split across two sites: the Hundred Heroines Photo Museum in Nailsworth displays original photographs, studio material and interpretive displays, while The Art Garden in Mortimer Gardens presents Edelstein’s celebrity portraits in an outdoor, around-the-clock setting. The new museum space is closer to Nailsworth town centre, arranged on one accessible level to welcome a broader audience.
Stardust ultimately examines how portraits can both create mythology and puncture it, capturing vulnerability, eccentricity or personality that challenges public perceptions. The enduring power of the image can turn a person into an icon or return the icon to being a person.
