Arches at London Bridge

No one’s life and death has been picked apart, analysed and mythologised quite like Marilyn Monroe’s. Over 60 years after the peroxide-blonde star died at just 36 years old, her legacy continues to fascinate: Andy Warhol’s pop-art portrait of the star broke the record for the most expensive piece of artwork sold by an American artist, her custom-made crystal dress made headlines when it was worn by Kim Kardashian on the Met Gala’s red carpet and biopics and documentaries continue to try and make sense of the person behind the glamorised persona – most recently in Netflix’s widely tanked Blonde. Now Marilyn: The Exhibition in Arches London Bridge promises to cut through the noise and reveal the ‘woman behind the myth’ with this vast display of Monroe’s personal objects. Billed as the ‘first exhibition of its kind in the UK’, it features 250 items of personal ephemera ranging from love letters to make-up and clothes from the private collection of Ted Stampfer, a German art collector who owns the world’s largest collection of Monroe’s historical objects. After her death in 1962, Monroe left all her possessions to Lee Strasberg, owner of the Actor’s Studio in New York where she studied method acting. The pieces remained untouched until they were gradually sold off by his widow in 1999, which means you can still see her individual bleached hairs on some of the clothing and curlers she used. In fact, the Arches is the perfect setting for this rare collection, where wandering...