American Idols
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Two surprisingly excellent shows of photography in separate boroughs, one in Manhattan, of John F. Kennedy, and one in Brooklyn, of Marilyn Monroe, complement each other perfectly. The two are obviously connected because of Jack and Marilyn’s personal relationship. Yet the shows also give color, shape, and weight – that is, human proportions – not only to their near-mythic subjects but to their devoted admirers.
Both these figures were idolized and adored during their tragically short lives, and their images, endlessly reproduced, are a part of Americana. The 200 photographs by 39 photographers in the Brooklyn Museum exhibition, in their totality, give us a complete portrait of the beloved starlet who died in 1962 at the age of 36.Typical is the moving and poignant “Marilyn Monroe in Car” (1957). In the photograph, a small gelatin silver print by Bob Henriques, the dreamy Marilyn wears a low-cut white dress. A large flower is nestled between her breasts. Elevated like a beauty queen, she sits on top of the back seat of the convertible, which parades her past a group of Boy Scouts.
Chest out, smiling, eyes barely open, Marilyn seems oblivious to the boys who ogle her from only inches away. High on the attention yet totally at ease, she brushes back her tousled blond hair from her face, which radiates with a post-coital glow. The Boy Scouts, wide-eyed and mouths agape, are in obvious pain. Their bodies are distorted, wracked by longing, awe, desire. Their faces betray lust, disbelief, and fear. One awkwardly holds a piece of paper (for an autograph?); another, a bouquet of flowers. Marilyn passes before them like a vision, and you sense their lives will never be the same.
“Marilyn Monroe in Car” is not a great photograph in the classic sense. (The Marilyns here by Cecil Beaton, Andre De Dienes, Bert Stern, and Henri Cartier-Bresson included in the exhibition hold up better compositionally.) But in many ways it does not matter. This is not a show of photography. It is a show of Marilyn. And she never disappoints. The word “photogenic” does not begin to describe the camera’s love affair with this woman.
Jane Russell said of Marilyn that she responded to photographers “like a flower opening to the sun,” and she can transform from hothouse orchid to demure lily in a heartbeat. The photographs – at times works of art, at others documentary, pinups, or soft porn – give us a personality that changes from girl-next-door to sultry seductress; from farmer’s daughter to poolside princess; from blonde bombshell to serious actress. Yet it is understood that it is all a ruse; even though every photograph tells a truth about her, she is merely giving us want we want. Because we want it all, that is what she gives us.
In the name of community outreach, the Brooklyn Museum has mounted some recent pop-culture disasters such as “Star Wars: The Magic of Myth.” It could be argued that “Marilyn Monroe” falls into the same category. But this show is sheer delight.
The exhibition has been given an Art Deco feel, evoking the pre-megaplex era of movie-house design. It should be terribly tacky, but the period flavor only adds to its nostalgic tug on the senses. The galleries, colored with champagne, pink, powder-blue, black, or red walls, sizzle with silvery satin wall text. And the curators do not pull any punches: This R-rated show could heat half the museum.
It gives us Bert Stern’s sexy, life-size nudes, including the once-seen-never forgotten “Marilyn Monroe: Reclining with Butt” (1962), one of the 59 images from “The Last Sitting” in this exhibition; Tom Kelly’s “Red Marilyn” (1949), which became a “Playboy” centerfold; and a whole series of Elliott Erwitt’s classic “Seven Year Itch” images (1955) of Marilyn standing over the subway grate, as her pleated white dress, whipping from her waist to her shoulders, mesmerizes a crowd of drooling paparazzi. Yet it also has masterpieces of portrait photography. Cecil Beaton’s “Marilyn Monroe Holding a Carnation” (1956) was one of her and Arthur Miller’s favorites.
The exhibition also includes a vitrine of Life Magazine spreads and two silkscreens by Andy Warhol, as well as movie trailers, an obituary newsreel, and, of course, a film of Marilyn singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to JFK. But if the “Marilyn Monroe” show portrays a public overwhelmed by beauty and running on arousal, “JFK for President: Photographs by Cornell Capa,” at the International Center for Photography, gives us a public overwhelmed by and running on hope.
This show, of dozens of photographs of Kennedy’s 1960 campaign and of the first 100 days of his administration, is bursting with patriotism and candor. Some of the most arresting images are of JFK’s hands, clutched together or holding a pen during a cabinet meeting, or reaching, as in “North Hollywood, California, September 9, 1960,” toward the outstretched and eager hands of the public. The images of crowds, especially children, who anxiously greet Kennedy, are enthralling. “Washington, D.C., Inauguration Day, January 20, 1961” depicts a patient though alert public huddled in bitter cold and heavy snow.
Some images seem prescient. “Jacqueline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, Jr., on the grounds of the White House, March 1961” is a distant shot of the first lady, alone, pushing a stroller. Death at times seems to hang over both the “Marilyn Monroe” and “JFK” shows like a pall.
The first image you encounter at the ICP is a blown-up to life-size detail of “Kennedy Riding in a Convertible on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood” (1960). That image and so many others in the exhibition (especially those that show or focus on the back of Kennedy’s youthful head of hair – emphasized by Capa to compare it to Eisenhower’s baldness) lose their original joyous overtones.The numerous images taken from behind, intended originally to be humorous and endearing (and they are some of the best photographs in the show) have, since Kennedy’s assassination, taken on a prophetic weight.
And they continue to change. Capa’s photographs of JFK, like those of Marilyn at the Brooklyn Museum, ultimately may strike us less for their portrayal of two important individuals, lost to us now for 40 years, than for their portrayal of an entire lost American era.
Monroe until March 20, 2005 (200 Eastern Parkway, at Washington Avenue, 718-638-5000).
JFK until November 28 (1133 Sixth Avenue, at 43rd Street, 212-857-0000).