Tuesday, March 8, 2011

marilyn reading in bedrooms and thickets

I have a soft spot for Marilyn Monroe. It's not that I particularly love her movies or that she embodies what I like about vintage or the past, but the innocence and insecurity she tried so hard to hide is so touching to me. 
I've always been perplexed by how easily child-like innocence is misunderstood as stupidity. The world is harder for people who are trusting, but being able to trust despite the hardness of that world is so beautiful.
Anyway, it recently dawned on me that there are many, many photos of Marilyn reading; Reading Joyce's Ulysses, reading about Goya, reading scripts, reading newspapers, reading paperback pulp, reading in libraries, reading under trees. 
I'm sure that some of these were posed, but I'm also sure that many of them were glimpses of Marilyn's curiosity caught on camera. 
These are my favorite photos of Marilyn Monroe.
I hope you all had a lovely Monday! More paintings and artist statement for Depending coming soon.
xoxo
Amanda

10 comments:

Sherry Wray said...

Lovely photos... It seems that alot of us misunderstand people. This is such a lovely post that it gives food for thought as well as shows other sides of people.

diane said...

what a beautiful collection! so lovely.

A said...

I find Marilyn inspirational for a variety of reasons. One being that she played the dumb blonde, but was quite smart. At one of my favorite sights, Librarything, they have a list of books Marilyn Monroe had at the time of her death. She was really quite well-read. If anyone wants to check it out, it can be found at: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/marilynmonroelibrary

www.juliadenos.com said...

really lovely pics...and I didn't know about this side of Marilyn-so endearing <3

Amanda Laurel Atkins said...

thank you, Amanda! That's so interesting.
Her whole persona was so created by the people who managed her. I love seeing the real her come through in photos and bits of information.

Kat said...

Thanks for sharing these WONDERFUL photos of Marilyn, Amanda! Where did you find them?

Amanda Laurel Atkins said...

Hi, Kat!! Well, I had seen a number of photos of Marilyn reading, so I actually just googled "marilyn monroe reading" and looked through everything that came up. There really are so many pictures!

Robyn said...

great pictures, I love that the world's greatest sex symbol was actually a book worm. I just wanted to tell you that, in fact, the book she is reading in the picture with the striped shirt is actually Ulysses by James Joyce. Quite a difficult novel! It speaks to Marilyn's ability to connect with complexities, probably because she herself was one!!

Robyn said...

great pictures, I love that the world's greatest sex symbol was actually a book worm. I just wanted to tell you that, in fact, the book she is reading in the picture with the striped shirt is actually Ulysses by James Joyce. Quite a difficult novel! It speaks to Marilyn's ability to connect with complexities, probably because she herself was one!!

Robyn said...

Beautiful pictures. I love the fact that the world's most iconic sex symbol was actually a book worm! I just wanted to mention to you that the book she is reading in the striped shirt picture is actually Ulysses by James Joyce. This speaks to Marilyn's ability to interact with difficult complexities, probably because she herself was one! Thanks for the beautiful photos!