Fashion & Visual Culture 

‘She made a photograph like nobody else, before or since’

Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery marks what would have been Monroe’s 100th birthday through an extensive survey of the portraits that helped construct one of the most recognizable images of the twentieth century.

Bringing together the work of more than twenty photographers, the exhibition seeks to reconsider Monroe not simply as a passive muse but as an active participant in the construction and dissemination of her own image.  Appropriately, it opens with a Photo Booth portrait of Norma Jean Baker, made before the transformation into the blonde icon of Marilyn Monroe.  From this point, the exhibition traces the gradual construction of a persona through the lens of photographers ranging from Cecil Beaton and Richard Avedon to Sam Shaw and Douglas Kirkland.

What emerges is a woman considerably more conscious of the mechanism of image-making than the conventional mythology of Monroe might suggest.  She understood photography as a form of authorship, exerting control over sittings and, at times, carefully scrutinizing and editing the resulting images.  Her determination to control her career extended beyond the photographic studio, the establishment of her own production company represented a significant assertion of professional independence within an industry still dominated by the studio system.  In this respect, the exhibition successfully complicates the familiar narrative of Monroe as merely the tragic, passive victim of Hollywood.

Yet, paradoxically, in its determination to emphasis Monroe’s agency, the exhibition occasionally risks producing another partial portrait.  The intellectual and professional dimensions of her life receive comparatively little attention.  Monroe was an avid reader, reportedly possessing a library of hundreds of books, including works by Freud and James Joyce.  Likewise, the significance of her prediction company and its challenge to the traditional structures of Hollywood might have provided a richer understanding of the woman behind the constructed image.

More significantly, the exhibition’s emphasis on agency sometimes seems to come at the expense of vulnerability.  Monroe’s difficulties, contradictions and psychological struggles were inseparable from the complex relationship she had with celebrity and representation.    Even her famously breathy vocal style was, in part, developed to overcome a childhood stutter.  Her increasing difficulties within the film industry likewise complicate the portrait of a woman who was simultaneously seeking artistic and professional autonomy while struggling beneath the extraordinary pressures of her public persona.

Ultimately, the exhibition risks falling into the very trap it seeks to interrogate.  For a woman whose entire life was defined by the tension between the image the world demanded and the person she wished to be, Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait remains overwhelmingly concerned with the image.  Perhaps it is inevitable.  Perhaps the ‘real’ Marilyn Monroe is ultimately inaccessible to us.

But in attempting to liberate Monroe from the mythology surrounding her, we should be careful not to erase the contradictions that made that mythology so powerful.  Her intelligence, ambition, vulnerability, flaws and tragedy were all part of the woman behind the photograph. To overlook them in favor of agency alone is, in its own way, another form of reducing her to an image.

Wes Anderson: The Archives at the Design Museum represents the first retrospective of Anderson’s films. Spanning three decades of Anderson’s career it features original storyboards, sketches, miniature models and costumes from his early 1993 breakout film, Bottle Rocket, to his latest 2023 Asteroid City. 

Anderson’s meticulous attention to detail, originality and dedication to his craft shines throughout the exhibition. Offering a kaleidoscope of material to explore, it covers everything from dazzlingly whimsy sets and costumes to custom designed railcars and Hotel stationary. Highlights include the Grand Budapest Hotel miniature model, the quirky vending machines for Asteroid city and the stop motion puppets used in Fantastic Mr Fox.  

However, one cannot help but feel something is missing. Anderson’s films expose dysfunctional families, grief and loss of innocence. Given his characters’ underlying sadness it’s a pity the exhibition fails to reveal more about what motivates Anderson to make these films. He draws from personal experiences having used his childhood alma mater, St John school in Houston as a prominent location for Rushmore Academy while his French Dispatch film offers a homage to American publication which he has collected since his high school days. It’s a shame we are never given a glimpse behind the dazzlingly sets’ proverbial curtain.  

Nevertheless, the exhibition is an impressive display of 700 objects and an interesting exploration of Anderson’s technical ingenuity. His innovative use of handcraft stop-motion techniques in Fantastic Mr Fox is showcased. His lesser known stop motion original, Isle of the Dogs, is particularly impressive. Isle of the Dog’s 180 miniature sets and 1,000 puppets create a fascinating imaginative world inspired by Japanese cinema and woodblock artists, Hokusai and Hiroshige.

For an exhibition based on such a whimsy, imaginative director, I left with more questions than answers.  Wes Anderson: The Archives is open until 16th August.