Andy Warol, Marilyn Monroe (F & S II.23), 1967
This summer, Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait opens at London’s National Portrait Gallery, inviting visitors to explore the life, legacy and cultural resonance of one of the 20th century’s most enduring icons. Running from 4 June to 6 September 2026, the exhibition marks the centenary of Monroe’s birth, offering a rich and varied experience that extends far beyond the familiar glamour of Hollywood stills. It’s a show that interrogates Monroe’s iconic status and the art of portraiture itself ; a fitting tribute to a figure whose image has shaped how the world thinks about fame, femininity and celebrity.
The exhibition brings together an exceptional range of photographs, prints and objects, from the classic Hollywood studio shots that defined Monroe’s early career to powerful reinterpretations by major contemporary artists. By framing these works side by side, the National Portrait Gallery asks us to consider not just who Monroe was, but how she was seen, and how that vision still reverberates today.
The Art of the Image
At its core, Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait highlights the collaborative nature of Monroe’s public image. The exhibition includes iconic photography by the likes of Cecil Beaton, Philippe Halsman, Eve Arnold and Richard Avedon, creators whose lenses captured Monroe’s allure in strikingly different ways. It’s not a linear narrative of a life, but a rich visual tapestry of how Monroe was represented and who helped shape that representation. The show also features contemporary artists who have reimagined Monroe’s image, including Andy Warhol, whose Pop Art portraits have become some of the most recognisable visual symbols of the 20th century. Warhol’s engagement with Monroe’s image, viewers will see here, speaks directly to the power of mass-media imagery and celebrity culture.
Warhol and Marilyn — The Power of Repetition
Andy Warhol’s depictions of Marilyn Monroe are inseparable from any discussion of modern portraiture and popular culture. Perhaps best known are his record-breaking 1964 portraits such as Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, which sold at auction for a staggering $195 million , setting a world record for 20th-century art.
Available at Andipa Editions, another equally significant chapter in Warhol’s engagement with Monroe is his 1967 Marilyn Monroe portfolio, a suite of ten silkscreen prints that rework the same publicity still in vivid, contrasting colours. Each print measures roughly 36″ × 36″ and was produced in editions of 250, some with artist proofs, making this series a cornerstone of Warhol’s exploration of celebrity, mass production and the commodification of image. Andipa has been active in the Warhol market for more than two decades, and its catalogue includes variations from Warhol’s Marilyn portfolio, each work a vibrant, expressive take on an image that has been reproduced millions of times in magazines, posters and film stills.
Beyond the Photograph: Portraiture as Cultural Narrative
What makes the National Portrait Gallery’s show so compelling is how it situates these well-known images within broader artistic and cultural conversations. Monroe was not just a subject to be photographed; she was a collaborator in her own public persona. In many of the exhibited works, she projects agency and awareness, a figure at once objectified and self-possessed.
The Warhol portfolio pieces amplifies this: by repeating the same image in different hues and fields of colour, Warhol forces viewers to confront the mechanics of celebrity itself, how repetition and saturation transform a person into a symbol. Each print’s bold, contrasting palette evokes the incessant churn of mass media while also creating striking, almost sacred iconography. That sense of icon as artefact resonates with other works in the show by artists like Marlene Dumas and Pauline Boty, whose interpretations of Monroe move beyond photography into expressionistic and painterly realms. These works, collectively, move the conversation beyond documentation into interpretation, probing deeper questions about image, identity and myth.
What Visitors Can Expect
Visitors to Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait will walk through rooms that oscillate between familiarity and reinvention. Early galleries feature classic studio and candid shots that reflect Monroe’s Hollywood ascendancy. Later sections juxtapose these with post-war and modern art interpretations that interrogate celebrity culture at large. Throughout, the show emphasises visual storytelling. Curators have paired work in unexpected ways placing a glamorous promotional still next to a Pop Art reinterpretation that reframes that glamour as cultural spectacle. It is these juxtapositions that make the exhibition feel less like a retrospective and more like a dialogue across generations, styles and media. In context, the works available through Andipa Editions provide a valuable secondary lens on this story. The Warhol Marilyn portfolio reminds us that Monroe’s face was not just captured but constructed, and that construction has continued to echo through the art world for decades.
Reimagining an Icon
Ultimately, Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait is not just a celebration of a star; it’s an investigation into how visual culture shapes collective memory. From classic portraits to bold Pop Art reinterpretations, the exhibition reframes Monroe not only as subject but as enduring symbol; one whose image continues to inspire, provoke and captivate. And as visitors leave the gallery, they might find that these images, whether in the hushed elegance of photographic portraiture or the loud colours of Warhol’s screenprints, have a way of staying with them, hinting at the complex interplay between celebrity, art and the eye that beholds it.
