Show business! Irving Berlin's Broadway

As one of the country's most beloved songwriters, Irving Berlin (1888-1989) left a treasured legacy to popular music. Composing over 1,500 songs, including the patriotic and theatrical anthems. "God Bless America" and "There's No Business Like Show Business," Berlin was an American institution without equal.

During his more than five decades in show business, Berlin wrote songs ranging from the soulful "Supper Time" (1933), intoned by Ethel Waters, and the rousing "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)" (1946), belted by Ethel Merman, to the hilarious numbers performed by the Marx Brothers in "The Cocoanuts" (1925).

"For generations of Americans, Berlin supplied the soundtrack to their lives," says David Leopold, curator of "Show Business! Irving Berlin's Broadway," which chronicles the composer's career through rare theater playbills, publicity photos, magazine illustrations, musical scores, and original theater designs. Leopold adds that Berlin's Broadway songs like "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1911), "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" (1919), "Easter Parade" (1933), and "Oh, How Hate to Get Up in the Morning" (1942) are a "part of the national consciousness."

The exhibition includes works by European expatriates Joseph Urban and Erte's elaborate and sensual costumes and sets for Berlin's "Ziegfeld Follies" and "Music Box Revues" of the 1910s and 1920s. Artists Jo Mielziner and Raoul Pene du Bois created more decidedly American designs for the composer's hit musicals "Annie Get Your Gun" (1946) and "Call Me Madam" (1950), the latter set in the White House West Wing.

"Show Business! Irving Berlin's Broadway," is on view through Oct. 1 at The Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Tex.

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