Marilyn Monroe: A Silent Life – an exhibition focusing on her unique affinity with the still camera – is now open at the Peter Fetterman Gallery on Michigan Avenue in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, until September 5th, a counterpart of sorts to the New York retrospective, Becoming Marilyn.
‘I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I never belonged to anything or anyone else.’
~ Marilyn Monroe (1926 – 1962)
“Peter Fetterman Gallery is proud to present Marilyn Monroe: A Silent Life, a major photographic exhibition bringing together an extraordinary group of artists who shaped—and witnessed—the image of Marilyn Monroe. Featuring works by Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Cornell Capa, Andre de Dienes, Elliott Erwitt, Allan Grant, Philippe Halsman, Douglas Kirkland, Milton Greene, Inge Morath, Lawrence Schiller, Sam Shaw, Bert Stern, and others, the exhibition offers a rare convergence of perspectives on one of the most photographed women in history.
While Monroe is often remembered through moments of apparent spontaneity—unguarded, searching, alone—A Silent Life also embraces the artifice that defined so much of her image. Studio sessions, magazine assignments, and constructed photographs reveal a performer acutely aware of the camera, shaping and reshaping herself in real time. In these works, performance is not a mask that hides the truth, but a language through which it is expressed.
The exhibition moves fluidly between these two modes: the composed and the unguarded, the theatrical and the intimate. A publicity still may carry an unexpected stillness; a candid frame may feel quietly staged. Across both, Monroe’s presence remains constant—at once luminous and elusive, fully seen yet never entirely known.
Rather than separating the ‘real’ from the ‘performed,’ Marilyn Monroe: A Silent Life suggests that her image exists precisely in the tension between the two. What emerges is not a single narrative, but a layered portrait—one that reflects both the construction of a myth and the inner life that flickers beneath it.”
Among the highlights are two photographs of the young Marilyn: on the beach at Malibu (Andre de Dienes, 1946); and working out at home (Philippe Halsman, 1952.)
Marilyn at the Actors Studio in 1955, photographed by Roy Schatt.
This 1956 portrait by Cecil Beaton was a personal favourite of Marilyn’s.
Henri Cartier-Bresson and Inge Morath photographed Marilyn in her suite at the Mapes Hotel in Reno, during filming of The Misfits in 1960.
Taken five years apart, these photographs by Eve Arnold reveal the labour behind Marilyn’s glamorous image.
And finally, a lesser-known photograph by Bert Stern and a previously unseen image by Allan Grant capture the many faces of Marilyn during her last summer.
The Marilyn Report 