The reluctant sex symbol

IN A GALLERY shop the other day, surrounded by Banksy prints and street artists that were so cutting edge that nobody but the gallery owner had heard of them, there were several prints of Marilyn Monroe by the pop art god Peter Blake.

There she was, glittering amongst the graffiti art, her face so iconic you almost don’t register it even when you’re looking straight at it.

We never tire of her. It’s been almost half a century since she bowed out, on August 5, 1962, aged 36 — but unlike the other dead icons, who have faded with time, whose images have become sepia tinted in our memory, Marilyn remains bright. The re-release of a book of photography shows her from 1945 to the year of her death, from the lithe, post-war beach girl to the shimmering goddess of some of the world’s most enduring and recognisable images. ‘Silver Marilyn’ features Marilyn close-ups, brunette Marilyn, silver iconic Marilyn, and Marilyn lying on white fur — which decades later would be copied by Madonna. The book is packed with legendary photographers, including Eve Arnold, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Henri Dauman, Weegee, Bob Willoughby, Bert Stern and Georges Belmont, who took the famous Silver Marilyn picture of her which Andy Warhol later transformed into one of his most famous (and replicated) pop art works.