I’m sure this will make your Sunday. On her first cover for 2011, you’ll have a hard time figuring out that it’s indeed Meryl Streep. For the Alumnae/i Quarterly magazine, Meryl transformed, with the help and stunning photography by Brigitte Lacombe, into Vassar founder Matthew Vassar. She helps to recreate the painting “Matthew Vassar, 1861“, commissioned by Vassar’s nascent Board of Trustees and executed by the distinguished artist Charles Loring Elliott, upon the founding of the college.

With many thanks to Simona, some amazing scans from the September issue of the Italian OK Salute magazine have been added to the Image Library, featuring a brand new photoshoot of Meryl. The magazine is currently on newsstands.

Here’s a new addition to the magazines archive courtesy Times Live: In an industry that’s notoriously shameless in its dismissal of actresses past a certain age, Meryl Streep has managed to beat the odds and now earns up to $8-million a movie. What’s more is that she’s not done this by playing the little-seen grandmother of the younger, blonder heroine, but by commandeering hit movies and taking on a variety of challenging lead roles. Last year alone, she starred in two films that made over $90-million apiece just in the US, one of which garnered her a Golden Globe nomination and the other an Oscar nod. She’s also just signed on to play Margaret Thatcher in upcoming biopic The Iron Lady. Not a bad way to spend her 61st year. Being the international household name that she is, it’s easy to forget just what an achievement her continued success really is. As it stands, Streep is peerless. Her 16 Oscar nominations are as yet unmatched by any other actor and her position as the only actress over 50, let alone 60, who can open a movie on the power of her name alone is unrivalled. Streep has said herself that the US doesn’t reward people of her age. But, why is this? What happened to all the other women who she was at a level pegging with back in the day? You can read the complete article in the magazines archive.

Added better quality scans of the French Vogue, May 2010 issue (see below’s update for more). Besides the two covers, a third picture of Penelope and Meryl is featured inside. Enjoy!

How about spending your spare time until the Oscars kick off with reading some recent articles and interviews from Entertainment Weekly to Vanity Fair. A complete list of uploads can be found below the previews with many thanks to Alvaro, Elmira and All Stars Online.

Image Library > Magazine Scans > 2010 > Entertainment Weekly (USA, February 2010)
Image Library > Magazine Scans > 2010 > Tatler Magazine (Russia, February 2010)
Image Library > Magazine Scans > 2010 > The Observer (United Kingdom, February 2010)
Image Library > Magazine Scans > 2010 > The Sunday Telegraph (Uniked Kingdom, February 2010)
Image Library > Magazine Scans > 2010 > Vanity Fair (USA, March 2010)

It is barely an exaggeration to say that you can’t have an awards season without Ms. Streep, who has been enmeshed in roughly half of them since 1979, when she was nominated for best supporting actress in “The Deer Hunter.” She won that category the next year, for “Kramer vs. Kramer,” and was nominated in it once again, in 2003, for “Adaptation.” Those three supporting nods are filigree on top of the 13 nominations for best actress, which she won on her second try, in 1983, for “Sophie’s Choice.” More than a quarter-century has passed since then, which may mean that Ms. Streep is overdue for a third statuette. Since her last one Oscars have gone to Gwyneth Paltrow, Hilary Swank (twice) and many other more- and less-deserving younger performers, while Ms. Streep, 60, has been a constant, patient and routinely passed-over Oscar-night presence. Has she received too much recognition or too little? Trying to quantify an answer is really just trivial showbiz math, pseudoscientific data marshaled in support of a conclusion that is already axiomatic: Meryl Streep is the best screen actress in the world. The complete article can be read over at The New York Times

There have been quite a few articles on Meryl lately, so have a look at the recently added scans. Many thanks to Alvaro for contributing the US Weekly and Woman’s Weekly scans (both from January), Anke for the Laviva scans and Nathalie from Amazing Rachel Weisz for the Myself Magazine scans (both from Germany and both February 2010 issues).

Image Library > Magazine Scans > 2010 > US Weekly (USA, January 2010)
Image Library > Magazine Scans > 2010 > Women’s Weekly (United Kingdom, January 2010)
Image Library > Magazine Scans > 2010 > Myself Magazine (Germany, February 2010)
Image Library > Magazine Scans > 2010 > Laviva Magazine (Germany, February 2010)

Today’s British Sunday Times newspaper has a (rather strange) cover of Meryl and Alec Baldwin and a very funny interview with the two inside. Thanks to Alvaro for the scans, be sure to read the article in the magazines archive, an excerpt can be found below the Image Libraries’ previews. Enjoy your Sunday!

Streep: At this age it’s unusual for somebody to do a love scene, to be making love. Yeah, that is unusual. But that is just how benighted we are. Because, you know, we still are alive. It’s you and I, baby. It’s authentic. The whole idea that you have to look a certain way and be a certain age to earn love is ridiculous. We love what we love. It doesn’t matter what shape it is. It’s thrilling to see real people on screen. The thing that broke that little barrier for me was Julie & Julia, where everyone said, “Isn’t it remarkable that a tall overweight woman and a short bald man could be in love?” Well, yeah? You know what I mean? You’re alive.

Baldwin [mock angry]: And the day you brought Stanley Tucci to the set of our film, I hated you for doing that. I thought, what a rude thing of you to do.

Streep: Did you really?

Baldwin: I was soooo hurt that you did that, because you and he had such chemistry. You were lovely together. It was like bringing your ex-husband to the set.

Streep: Oh, my God, I never thought of that.

Baldwin: Obviously you didn’t! I was your man in this movie, and you brought Stanley there? My penis telescoped up into my body. You know what? I’m going to do one of those movies like 300, where I’m all muscled up, and I’ve got my boobs all oiled and everything.

Streep: And they’ll be going, “Alec Baldwin’s back! He’s back!”

With thanks to the wonderful Rea we now have teriffic scans from the latest Vanity Fair issue! Enjoy :-)