First released in a 2002 boxset, Marilyn by Andre de Dienes – the greatest of her early photographers – has been reissued in a compact format for her centenary, as part of a 45th Edition series from the German art publisher, Taschen.
“One day in 1945, fashion photographer André de Dienes met an aspiring model named Norma Jeane Dougherty. It was a momentous moment, both for his personal life and his photographic portfolio. Over the next few years, he would be briefly engaged to Norma Jeane, take a number of adventurous road trips with her, and build up a stunning series of portraits which would help launch her modelling, and later movie, career.
This collection of de Dienes’s photographs and private memoirs offers an intimate picture of Norma Jeane the woman, before she was Marilyn the icon. From their trip to see Norma Jeane’s mother in a mental hospital to Marilyn’s visit a few days before her death, de Dienes’s emotion-laden archive, often annotated with handwritten notes, offers a deeply personal account of Monroe’s transformation from a sensitive, ambitious girl into a deeply troubled global star.”
Additionally, a selection of mostly black-and-white photographs dating from 1946-53 is currently on display at the Upsilon Gallery on Grosvenor Street in London’s West End, until July 31.
“Upsilon Gallery is pleased to present André de Dienes: Beyond Monroe, an exhibition celebrating the enduring photographic legacy of André de Dienes and his intimate portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in the centenary year of her birth. Bringing together a significant body of photographs produced between 1945 and 1956, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to reconsider Monroe not as a fixed cultural icon, but as a figure in continual formation.
Rather than presenting a retrospective mythology, Beyond Monroe foregrounds the fluidity and uncertainty that characterised Monroe’s early years before the camera. Photographed across beaches, cafés and open landscapes, de Dienes’ images possess an atmosphere of striking intimacy and psychological depth. Removed from the highly controlled environment of studio portraiture, these photographs reveal a more exploratory and unresolved presence, one negotiating the very conditions of visibility and fame.
As Monroe’s public identity evolved throughout the 1950s, de Dienes continued to capture moments that resisted the polished certainty of celebrity culture. While traces of glamour and stylisation increasingly emerge, the photographs maintain an unusual sense of inwardness. Monroe’s gaze frequently appears distant or ambiguous, complicating the relationship between subject and viewer and suggesting an interiority that exceeds the image itself.”
Marilyn is paired with another American icon for Becoming Marilyn & Becoming Elvis, on display until September 6 at the Cascais Cultural Centre near Lisbon.
“On the centenary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth, major museums and cultural institutions around the world are preparing projects dedicated to her legacy. The same year marks seven decades since the release of Elvis Presley’s first album … Cascais responds to this dual moment with a unique proposal, bringing together the photographs that André de Dienes and Alfred Wertheimer took of the two icons in a moment of unrepeatable trust, before fame made them untouchable: a time capsule captured on the threshold between anonymity and stardom.”
And finally, Portuguese fans may also be interested in Marilyn: Icon of the Century, an exhibition of items from the collection of Ted Stampfer, on display at the Colombo Shopping Centre in Lisbon until August 31.
The Marilyn Report 