Once regarded as disposable signs to be enjoyed briefly and then changed as quickly as the marquee, early hand-painted movie posters were more often destroyed than saved.  Presented in conjunction with the release of the book Now Playing: Hand-Painted Poster Art from the 1910s through the 1950s, this exhibition features remarkable, rarely seen works by such artists as Batiste Madalena, Edwin Isaac (Ike) Checketts, O.M. (Otto) Wise and R.J. (Renfred) Rogers. 

The exhibition also illuminates the differences between exhibitor-commissioned posters and their studio-produced counterparts.  Madalena’s extravagant rendering of star Pola Negri in a poster for Hotel Imperial is juxtaposed with the studio’s poster for the film.  Wise’s deeply emotive painting for Raoul Walsh’s The Man Who Came Back can be seen side-by-side with a corresponding studio window card.  Both Madalena’s and Checketts’s posters for The Humming Bird are displayed alongside the studio publicity still that was sent to both artists. 

“Now Playing at the Dunn” can be viewed whenever Academy public programs are hosted at the Dunn.