The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 14, 2025

Pixelated black-and-white computer composite of multiple White, women movie stars' faces into a headshot, looking at us. The face is narrow with a pointed chin and has wide set large eyes with heavy black eyeliner and mascara, low sculpted eyebrows, and lips pressed together, the bottom lip plump. Long, dark hair fills the majority of the space surrounding the face, strands of hair falling over the left brow.

Second Beauty Composite: Jane Fonda, Jacqueline Bisset, Diane Keaton, Brooke Shields, Meryl Streep

1982

Nancy Burson

(American, b. 1948)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 20.9 x 22.7 cm (8 1/4 x 8 15/16 in.); Framed: 46.4 x 46.5 cm (18 1/4 x 18 5/16 in.)
The Jane B. Tripp Charitable Lead Annuity Trust 2020.73
© Nancy Burson
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Standards of beauty vary not only across cultures but also through time.

Description

By compositing the faces of female movie stars from two different eras, Nancy Burson helps us see how the type of face considered photogenic and therefore beautiful changed over the space of just a couple of decades. Curiously, creating digital composites of women took Nancy Burson longer than producing composites of men because women’s hairstyles are much more varied.
  • John J. McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OH
    March 2, 2020
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Burson, Nancy, Richard Carling, and David Kramlich. Composites: Computer-Generated Portraits. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986.
    Burson, Nancy, Michael L. Sand, Lynn Gumpert, Terrie Sultan, and Christopher C. French. Seeing and Believing: The Art of Nancy Burson. Santa Fe, N.M.: Twin Palms, 2002.
  • {{cite web|title=Second Beauty Composite: Jane Fonda, Jacqueline Bisset, Diane Keaton, Brooke Shields, Meryl Streep|url=false|author=Nancy Burson|year=1982|access-date=14 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.73