Edward Steichen, Gloria Swanson, 1924. Image courtesy Condé Nast Publications Inc./ Courtesy George Eastman House

Narelle Doe soaks up some glamour at the National Portrait Gallery with Vanity Fair Portraits, running until May 26 2008.

The National Portrait Gallery’s much-hyped glitzy exhibition, Vanity Fair Portraits, is the first to bring together rare vintage prints with contemporary classics from the iconic magazine Vanity Fair and the legendary Condé Nast Archive.

This glamorous history of celebrity portraiture sees an array of famous faces from the last hundred years parade across the walls courtesy of master photographers such as Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton, Annie Leibovitz and Mario Testino.

Vanity Fair commissioned and published some of the greatest photographs of the 20th century and here we are treated to a celebrity who’s who - from actors, directors, painters, poets, composers and politicians.

Lillian Gish, Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford vie for attention, Hollywood starlets such as Katharine Hepburn and Jean Harlow work their nostalgic magic, and intimate portraits of great men like Thomas Hardy, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso radiate intensity through the lens.

The magazine’s mix of artistic seriousness and popular celebrity meant that commissioned portraits of authors and artists such as Claude Monet, Augustus John and the leaders of the avant-garde (photographed by Man Ray), were displayed alongside profiles of actors, musicians and athletes.

Yet for all its glamour there does seem to be something missing from this exhibition. You cannot deny the artistic skill of the photographers or the interest of their subjects, yet you do leave feeling that it did lack substance.

George Hurrell, Jean Harlow, 1934. Image courtesy Condé Nast Publications Inc./ Courtesy Condé Nast Archive

Black and white photographs from the 1920s and 1930s are the highlight of the show. Endearing, nostalgic, effortlessly chic and elegant, they give a glimpse into a lost world many of us yearn for. It is almost overwhelming to see so many famous faces from every walk of life gracing the gallery walls together.

The beginning of the 20th century was an exciting time and this sense of vitality and youthfulness is strongly apparent in Vanity Fair’s early photographs. Modern music and modern art exploded onto the cultural scene in America, causing a stir in society on the edge of war.

Vanity Fair considered their portraits as fine art and celebrated this by printing their photographs on the whole page of the magazine. This was the birth of ‘celebrity worship’ as we know it now.

Many of these photographs can claim to be ‘definitive’ portraits. We have the infamous definitive portrait of Demi Moore, nude and heavily pregnant, we have the definitive portrait of the seductive yet elusive Greta Garbo, and we have the definitive portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales by Mario Testino.

Norman Jean Roy, Hilary Swank, 2004. Image courtesy Norman Jean Roy

For me, something was lost when the exhibition moved towards the present day. Perhaps the idea of the ‘modern celebrity’ is beginning to wear thin but these photographs of models, actresses and royalty seemed little more than a glossy advertisement for Vanity Fair.

The main change in the style of the photography seemed to be that a sense of playfulness, movement and fun emerged from the 1980s onwards – when the magazine was resurrected and revamped. This more ‘knowing’ approach is vastly different from the depth, mystery and even gentleness of the early portraits of legendary figures such as Virginia Woolf and Gloria Swanson.

Perhaps we are now just too spoilt in this multimedia world we live in to appreciate these modern pictures more. Just walk into any newsagents and you can get a fix of celebrity glitz for a couple of quid.

This collection of 150 classic images is rarely controversial. They are a celebration of an artistic collaboration between an icon and photographer. Some of the more provocative photographs are of politicians; a commanding portrait of Margaret Thatcher, a photograph of the Reagans dancing, and a formal line up of George W Bush and his Afghan War Cabinet. These prompted much muttering from onlookers.

Photography can be a conveyor of truly great people, captured on film by truly great photographers. Vanity Fair Portraits continues this tradition with a generous helping of glossy seduction. The exhibition promised glamour and delivers it, but somehow that didn’t seem quite enough to avoid the show feeling slightly shallow in places. A sad reflection of our cynical times perhaps.