Marilyn Monroe at the Galerie de l’Instant, a photography exhibition centered on Sam Shaw’s portraits

The Galerie de l’Instant is dedicating an exhibition to Marilyn Monroe with Marilyn, Portrait of a Radiant Child, a curated selection of photographs by Sam Shaw, on display in Paris from June 1 to September 15, 2026. Through images shot between 1954 and 1958, the show revisits a period when the actress, already a global cinema icon, allowed a photographer she trusted to approach her. The image is iconic, almost inseparable from her public persona: Marilyn, in a white dress billowing above a subway grate, on the set of The Seven Year Itch by Billy Wilder.

Sam Shaw meets Marilyn Monroe in the early 1950s, within the world of Hollywood cinema, notably during the shoot of Viva Zapata!. Their professional relationship evolves into a friendship, giving the photographer’s work a distinctive place in the actress’s iconography. The exhibition brings together studio portraits, on-set moments, and more intimate scenes, where the star is seen in her relationship to the gaze, the image, and the construction of her public persona. In this arc, the quotation attributed to Marilyn — "Everyone says I can’t act" — also recalls the context of an actress often reduced to her appearance, even as she refined her craft and image with precision.

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A significant part of the series centers on photographs taken in Roxbury, on the Connecticut estate of Arthur Miller, her third husband. These images show a Marilyn far removed from the usual codes of film promotion, captured in moments of rest or intimacy. The exhibition also probes the fragile boundary between Norma Jeane and Marilyn Monroe, between private life and public persona, notably through makeup and preparation shots, where Marilyn’s face becomes a subject of composition.

The title of the exhibition echoes Truman Capote's text, Une enfant radieuse, published in Musique pour caméléons at Gallimard in 1982. The quoted passage provides a reading key to the journey: "Je dirais que tu es une enfant radieuse." Without aiming to overhaul the Marilyn Monroe story entirely, the Galerie de l’Instant invites us to revisit a series of images that have become essential in the actress’s visual memory. The exhibition can thus be read as a sober traverse of a photographic myth, spanning cinema, portrait, and self-representation. And in addition, we’ll of course go see the exhibition devoted to the actress at the Cinémathèque!

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