One Life: Echoes of Elvis

“Echoes of Elvis,“ a one-room exhibition by the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, opened on on January 8, 2010, marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of Elvis Presleys birth. View the exhibit online at: Although Elvis died more than thirty years ago, the world remains fascinated with his image and music. His records have continued to sell by the millions and public interest in his music, career and life has yet to subside. During the last half century, Elvis became part of the country’s artistic discourse as well. Early in Elviss career, Andy Warhol illuminated the role he played in the new and youth-powered popular American culture; later, Ralph Wolfe Cowan, Red Grooms, and others created mythical, spiritual, and earthly images of the man whose legacy includes multiple superlative moments in music, entertainment, life, and afterlife. To this day, both the historical Elvis Presley and the fantasy-based vision of Elvis are the subject of poetry, literature,