BFI and National Portrait Gallery to mark centenary of the film star’s birth with ‘the summer of Marilyn’
Though often reduced to a sex symbol frozen in time, or a tragic figure at the centre of several scandals, Marilyn Monroe was something far more subversive, according to two exhibitions that will herald what has been nicknamed “the summer of Marilyn”.
To mark the centenary of her birth, Monroe is being celebrated by leading British cultural institutions as a performer of sharp comic intelligence, a canny architect of her own image, and a woman who reshaped the possibilities for female stardom on screen.
A sweeping two-month season at the British Film Institute (BFI) will revisit her filmography, while a landmark exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery charts the construction of her image.
“Marilyn Monroe was quite possibly the biggest star cinema ever saw and will ever see,” said Kimberley Sheehan, the BFI’s lead programmer, who curated the season. “She was the original triple threat and deserves much credit for crafting her own image and stardom.”
