Fame is a quality that increases proportionally to a disinterest in video games, explaining the relative obscurity of notorious Wii fanatic Millard Fillmore. Come face to face with true greatness with today's Groupon: for $5, you'll get admission to Speed Art Museum's The Most Famous People in the World: Karsh 100 exhibit. Admission, free for museum members, is normally $10. The iconic imagery snapped by eminent shutterbug Yousuf Karsh is housed inside the state's largest art museum, located on historic Third Street.

Organized by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the exhibit includes portraiture of famous 20th-century luminaries such as Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and Pablo Picasso. Celebrated Armenian photographer Karsh devoted his life to capturing stunning snapshots of some of the world's most famous actors, statesman, and cultural revolutionaries. This limited-time exhibit allows viewers to ponder the subtleties of history's great visages while appreciating Karsh's eye for capturing the famous in Funyuns-munching candid shots.

A $12 million renovation and expansion completed in 1997, coupled with a collection of art spanning 6,000 years, adds to the charm of the influential and expansive art institution. As you marvel at the greatness of the Karsh 100 exhibit, get inspired to realize your own dreams or just take a well-deserved cultural pause from gazing at the unprofessional pictures on social-networking sites. The exhibit is open five days a week (galleries are closed on Monday and Tuesday) until June 27. After the exhibit, you can check out Speed's permanent collection for free, but a $4 donation is recommended.

Reviews

Previous installations of Yousuf Karsh's portraits have drawn stellar reviews from the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post:

• His toning and printing, which make subjects fairly ooze distinction, also points up sparkly highlights such as jewelry, which appears to suggest that greatness is somehow synonymous with luxury. So even an actor as direct and unadorned as Clark Gable here looks like a successful salesman, and a wily politician such as Madame Chiang Kai-shek comes across as a fashion plate. – Alan G. Artner, Chicago Tribune
• Karsh dealt in dreams. It seems like an old-fashioned attribute, now. We don't see the famous this way anymore -- serene, knowing and pearlescent -- and what celebrity today could pose so unself-consciously heroically as [Marian] Anderson, or [Joan] Crawford? – Sarah Kaufman, Washington Post