SOME of the world's most famous faces will feature in a new exhibition of portraits opening in the region today.

The Behind the Mask exhibition will be at the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham, until August 25, and features paintings of famous artists, writers and stars of the stage and screen.

The exhibition will include portraits of the famous including Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Pablo Picasso and Leo Tolstoy.

The Bowes Museum has been loaned the paintings by the Hatton Gallery, at the University of Newcastle and the National Portrait Gallery, in London.

The aim of the exhibition is to show how artists, throughout history, have attempted to penetrate the appearance of their famous subjects.

Works from the Bowes Museum include portraits by Goya, Catherina van Hem-essen and Francesco Trevisani, while the National Portrait Gallery has loaned a piece by David Hockney.

Works from the Hatton's collection include portraits by the renowned artist Francis Bacon, as well as Alphonse Legros and Henry Raeburn.

One of the centre-pieces of the exhibition will be a portrait of Elizabeth Taylor by Andy Warhol, produced in 1967.

The exhibition was planned and brought together by Lucy Whetstone, curator of the Hatton Gallery.

She said: "The idea of the range of works on display here is to consider three different interwoven identities - the face, the public front and the private personality.

"It is how each artist has confronted these elements that is what the exhibition sets out to discover.