{"id":620083,"date":"2026-06-04T03:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T03:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/620083\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T03:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T03:48:11","slug":"this-joyful-marilyn-monroe-exhibition-will-melt-your-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/620083\/","title":{"rendered":"This joyful Marilyn Monroe exhibition will melt your heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

You would have to have a heart (and loins) of granite not to melt at the radiance of Marilyn Monroe<\/a>, as captured in the National Portrait Gallery\u2019s irresistible new exhibition. On my way there, I had felt melancholic: for all the vivacity she brought to such films as Some Like It Hot, Monroe is fixed in aspic<\/a> \u2013 and indeed in tasteless, widely circulated photographs of her lifeless body \u2013 on the day of her death, August 4 1962, aged 36, following a barbiturate overdose. Yet, within seconds of walking through the gallery doors, my sorrow had evaporated.<\/p>\n

The curators\u2019 masterstroke is to immerse us early in Philippe Halsman\u2019s Jumpology images from 1959, which show Monroe leaping for joy with the naughty exuberance of a St Trinian\u2019s schoolgirl. The photographer believed that jumping freed his subjects from their social personae, revealing a more authentic self. Another Halsman shot, of Monroe in jeans, reclining on an exercise bench while lifting dumbbells, proved equally captivating. It also made me reflect, in the spirit of a Rigby & Peller saleswoman, that there was no way this Hollywood goddess was a 36D cup, as history tends to record. In terms of modern lingerie, she looked, for much of her life, closer to a 30C or D.<\/p>\n

Equally enchanting are the poetic black-and-white \u201cmood\u201d photos taken by Andr\u00e9 de Dienes on Malibu Beach in 1946, when the star was still known as Norma Jeane; before the beauty spot, kohl, platinum waves and scarlet lipstick became her mask. Here, her hair is a mass of tousled curls, her cheeks have the soft swell of a teenager, and an army blanket is draped over her shoulders. Harder to dwell on is the image where Dienes asked his young model to convey \u201cdeath\u201d<\/a> and she placed the blanket over her head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You would have to have a heart (and loins) of granite not to melt at the radiance of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[72876,6225,164236,6485,6486,5343,168438,1120,96,10993,51166,8900,6487,263,210622,56,54,55,157732],"class_list":["post-620083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art-galleries","tag-arts","tag-arts-amp-crafts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-culture","tag-culture-editors-choice","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibitions","tag-marilyn-monroe","tag-national-portrait-gallery","tag-photography","tag-review","tag-rowan-pelling","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}