Art Review: Ava Gardner Museum

Having written about the witches in Salem earlier this week, I’ll turn to a woman who was simply, stunningly bewitching. Ava Gardner (1922–1990) was one of the biggest stars in movies. The Barefoot Contessa, Show Boat, Mogambo, The Sun Also Rises, and Night of the Iguana are some of her biggest hits, but her life offscreen was as cinematic, with an X rating. She’s also, as far as I can tell, the only big Hollywood star with a museum dedicated to her life. Fresh from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, where I wrote about tight, fanatical Puritans, I went south, on American Airlines, not a broomstick, to visit the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, N.C.

It’s a great place. It’s thorough, with good production values, not more hagiographic than it needs to be, and a place that art curators should visit. I liked the Peabody Essex show but felt a curatorial reticence that’s common these days. The subjects never came to life. I’ll admit that they were dealing with tightly wound Puritans, farmers working backbreaking labor, and scrawny teenage girls — entirely unattractive people.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

Having written about the witches in Salem earlier this week, I’ll turn to a woman who was simply, stunningly bewitching. Ava Gardner (1922–1990) was one of the biggest stars in movies. The Barefoot Contessa, Show Boat, Mogambo, The Sun Also Rises, and Night of the Iguana are some of her biggest hits, but her life offscreen was as cinematic, with an X rating. She’s also, as far as I can tell, the only big Hollywood star with a museum dedicated to her life. Fresh from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, where I wrote about tight, fanatical Puritans, I went south, on American Airlines, not a broomstick, to visit the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, N.C.

It’s a great place. It’s thorough, with good production values, not more hagiographic than it needs to be, and a place that art curators should visit. I liked the Peabody Essex show but felt a curatorial reticence that’s common these days. The subjects never came to life. I’ll admit that they were dealing with tightly wound Puritans, farmers working backbreaking labor, and scrawny teenage girls — entirely unattractive people.