help please: tkinter grid layout is very slow

[Rich Cook]

Hi, I'm trying to toss together an image browser in tkinter, and it is so slow it is unworkable.  Here is my code.  Can someone point out why it's so sloooow?  :-)  Thanks

root = Tkinter.Tk()
root.geometry("1000x280+300+300")
label = Tkinter.Button(root, compound=Tkinter.TOP)
label.pack()

numimages = len(image_list)
numcols = 6
numrows = numimages/numcols
if numrows * numcols != numimages:
    numrows += 1

frame = Tkinter.Frame(root)
for col in range(numcols):
    frame.columnconfigure(col, pad=2)

for row in range(numrows):
    frame.rowconfigure(row, pad=2)

print "There are", numimages, "images"  # 256 in fact... 
for imagenum, (row, col) in enumerate([(row,col) for row in range(numrows) for col in range(numcols)]):
    b = Tkinter.Label(frame, compound = Tkinter.TOP)
    b['text'] = os.path.basename(image_list[imagenum])
    b['image'] = ImageTk.PhotoImage(Image.open(image_list[imagenum]) )
    b.grid(row=row, column = col)
    
frame.pack()

root.mainloop()