Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait

Published in celebration of the Hollywood star’s 100th birthday and in association with the Marilyn Monroe estate, to accompany the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait celebrates Monroe’s enduring legacy as a cultural icon, by exploring her impact on photography, art and film.

Marilyn Monroe was one of the most famous and photographed women of the twentieth century whose cultural significance continues to fascinate generations.

Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait reflects on Monroe’s extraordinary impact on photographers and artists, showing familiar and rarely seen photographs of her, alongside outstanding artworks made during her lifetime and afterwards, that collectively create a portrait of her.

Today, as we better understand the challenges Monroe faced in her life and the agency she sought in shaping her career, her photographs have accumulated new meanings and captivated new audiences.

From her collaborations with photographers such as Eve Arnold and Richard Avedon to bold reinterpretations of her by Pop artists including Pauline Boty and Andy Warhol, Monroe’s image has been continually reimagined, speaking to her lasting impact on visual culture and our understanding of beauty, fame, and power.

Far more than a Hollywood star, Monroe was a complex figure; ambitious, witty, charismatic, and deeply involved in the crafting of her public persona. Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait includes contributions from the actor, director and writer Lena Dunham, playwright and cultural commentator Bonnie Greer and feminist art historian Griselda Pollock, who offer fresh and personal perspectives on Monroe’s cultural significance and enduring legacy.

Rosie Broadley is Joint Head of Curatorial and Senior Curator of 20th-Century Collections at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She has contributed to publications including Francis Bacon: Human Presence (2024), Paul McCartney 1964: Eyes of the Storm (2023), BP Portrait Award 2018 (2018), Suffrage and the Arts: Visual Culture, Politics and Enterprise (2018) and Laura Knight Portraits (2013).

Georgia Atienza is Assistant Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London. She has contributed to publications including Francis Bacon: Human Presence (2024), Women at Work: 1900 to Now (2023), Yevonde: Life and Colour (2023), Love Stories: Art, Passion & Tragedy (2020) and Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer (2011).

Lucy Bolton is Professor in Film Philosophy at Queen Mary University of London, where she specialises in film philosophy, film stardom, and feminist approaches to filmmaking and film theory. She is the author of Contemporary Cinema and the Philosophy of Iris Murdoch (Edinburgh University Press 2019), Film and Female Consciousness: Irigaray, Cinema and Thinking Women (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), co-editor of Lasting Screen Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), and winner of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Best Edited Collection award, 2017.

Sean Burns is an artist, editor and writer. He is the director of the film Dorothy Towers (2022), author of Death (Tate Publishing 2023), and the co-founder of Queer Street Press, an independent publishing imprint. He writes extensively on art and culture and sits on an advisory council at Tate. He has also been a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, and Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. His work has appeared at venues internationally, including Auto Italia and the British Film Institute, London; Edinburgh Art Festival; and Goswell Road, Paris.

Sarah Churchwell is Professor in American Literature and Chair of Public Humanities at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study. An acclaimed writer and public intellectual, she is the author works on The Great Gatsby and Marilyn Monroe, as well as American political and cultural history. She has been a judge for many literary prizes, including the Man Booker Prize, was named one of Prospect magazine’s Top Fifty Thinkers in 2020, and longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2021. An experienced broadcaster, she is co-host with David Olusoga of the Goalhanger podcast Journey Through Time.

Lena Dunham is the ultimate multi-hyphenate ― an award-winning actor, writer, director, producer and philanthropist. She recently returned to television with the Netflix romcom 'Too Much', which she wrote, directed and co-created with her husband Luis Felber. Dunham also wrapped production on the Netflix feature 'Good Sex', starring Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo, and will make her Broadway creative debut with '10 Things I Hate About You: The Broadway Musical'. She previously starred in and produced 'Treasure' (2024), and wrote and directed 'Catherine Called Birdy' and 'Sharp Stick' (2022). Dunham created and starred in HBO’s 'GIRLS', earning eight Emmy nominations and two Golden Globes, and making history as the first woman to win a DGA Award for Best TV Comedy Director. An accomplished writer, Dunham contributes to The New Yorker, Vogue, and The New York Times. Her 2014 memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, was a #1 NY Times bestseller. Her most recent memoir, Famesick, was published by Random House in April 2026.

Bonnie Greer OBE is an American and British playwright, broadcaster and critic. As a broadcaster, Greer has featured in a number of arts-related programmes on Channel 4 and Sky Arts and has been a regular contributor to political programmes on the BBC such as Question Time and Newsnight. Greer has served on the boards of leading cultural organisations including the Royal Opera House, the London Film School and the British Museum. She is also the former Chancellor of Kingston University. In 2010, she received an OBE for services to the arts.

Griselda Pollock, feminist art historian and curator, is Professor emerita of Social & Critical Histories of Art at the University of Leeds (1977–2021), laureate of the 2020 Holberg Prize, and recipient of multiple awards for writing and promoting equality. Classic texts include Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology (1981) and Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity and the Histories of Art (1988). Recent publications include WOMAN IN ART: Helen Rosenau’s ‘Little Book’ of 1944 (Yale University Press, 2023) Killing Men & Dying Women: Imagining Difference in 1950s New York Painting (Manchester University Press, 2022), Charlotte Salomon in the Theatre of Memory (Yale University Press, 2018).