Marilyn Monroe 1926-1962
For the fourth year running, Marilyn is the poster girl for the Champs-Élysées Film Festival in Paris this month (as spotted by Ramon at Marilyn Remembered – you can check out last year’s artwork here.)
Meanwhile in Prague, this knitted creation by Eva Blahova transformed a J. Malejovsky sculpture into a statue of Marilyn in The Seven Year Itch (spotted by Jan at MM fan Club Belgium.)
Good news for French fans: the Marilyn exhibit at La Galerie d’Instant in Paris, featuring some of her best photographers, has been extended until March 4.
Iconic photos of Marilyn by Sam Shaw, Lawrence Schiller and Bert Stern are now on display at La Galerie D’Instant in Paris until February 13, 2018. You can also order an exhibition poster online for €20.
Artist Lucille Clerc‘s gorgeous rendering of Marilyn – inspired by Milton Greene’s ballerina sitting – adorns posters for this year’s Champs Elysees Film Festival, celebrating independent French and American cinema. (And while you’re in Paris, don’t forget to see Bert Stern’s photos of Marilyn at DS World.)
Thanks to Chris at Club Passion Marilyn
Bert Stern’s ‘avant garde’ 1962 photo shoot with Marilyn is featured in a new exhibition at the DS World car showroom in Paris. (The photo above shows Marilyn’s scar after gallbladder surgery.)
“DS World Paris is hosting the ‘Marilyn, The Last Sitting’ exhibition from 8 June 2017 to 6 January 2018.
The session took place in Hotel Bel Air in Los Angeles in 1962 over two days and one night, consisting of three long photo shoots by Bert Stern for Vogue magazine. The photographer took a total 2,571 pictures; the 59 most emblematic are on show at DS World Paris.
For Julien Faux, Director of DS World Paris, the exhibition is ‘a way of keeping alive the legend of this extraordinary woman, who was ahead of her time. It is also a perfect opportunity for drawing parallels between the timelessness of this artist, who has since become an icon, with the spirit of avant-garde of the current models in the DS collection, descended directly from the DS, another icon of the 20th century.’
The exhibition is showing at DS World Paris at 33 rue François 1 in Paris. Free admission.”
Thanks to Eric Patry
All About Eve and Some Like It Hot are among the 53 films selected for this month’s ‘Glamour’ season at the Forum Des Images in Paris. (Although the striking poster art features Marilyn in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the 1953 musical comedy is not included – which is a pity, as it is partly set in a Hollywoodised version of Paris.)
Thanks to Eric
Diamond manufacturer Cartier has made an enchanting Christmas commercial, featuring a cover version of ‘Diamonds Are a Girl Best Friend’, performed by supermodel Karen Elson, from an arrangement by Jarvis Cocker. Of course, Cartier was referenced in Marilyn’s signature song from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Elson is shown being carried aloft by tuxedoed suitors, in a nod to Jack Cole’s original choreography. It was filmed in Paris, where Blondes is partially set. The neckline of her red dress is similar to Marilyn’s in Niagara, and the scene where her flared skirt billows over a subway grate recalls The Seven Year Itch. You can watch the clip here.
Philippe Halsman: Astonish Me!, a new retrospective, has opened at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris, and will be on display until January 24, 2016, reports Time.com.
“All in all this retrospective showcases some 300 exclusive images and original documents (contact sheets and prints, preliminary proofs, original photo-montages and mock-ups) that shed a unique new light on the work and approach of an exceptional and atypical photographer.”
As with other famous tragedies, many people remember where they were when Marilyn died. This excerpt from John Wilcock: The New York Years (an ongoing comic book biography of underground publisher John Wilcock, by Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall), recreates the moment Wilcock heard the news in a Paris bookstore. You can read the extract in full at Boing Boing.net.
A new exhibition, ‘Roy Schatt – Icons’, featuring his iconic photos of stars like Marilyn, James Dean and Steve McQueen, is on display at La Galerie de l’Instant in Paris until January 12th, 2014. (Thanks to Eric Patry for the heads-up!)
“But the most moving portraits, it seems to me, are those of Marilyn Monroe, in 1955. She attended as a student in the public meetings of the Strasberg Theatre School … It distinguishes among students in dark suits … all have their faces turned to the professor, and among these shadows can be seen as a star … a light touch, this famous light that emanated from her, she is, attentive, concentrated and especially natural, simple … one of the best periods of his life. This natural, this purity, this kindness that emanates from these photographs, I think is a very modern for its time, making these images not only beautiful and moving, but also timeless.”