Search This Blog

Friday, June 10, 2016

Bendigo...

My birthday was last month and my gift from DH was a trip to Bendigo to visit the Art Gallery there which has been showing a Marilyn Monroe Exhibition. It closes in July, so with no time to waste, we headed off from Brisbane on Thursday morning...


In Melbourne, we picked up our hire car and headed for Bendigo...the car had NSW plates this time! 😉


And today was the day for seeing the exhibition but I had to wait patiently till 11.30 am as that's when our tickets were for. So plenty of time to take photos of the giant statue of Marilyn in a lovely park just down the road from the gallery. 

There is a statue of Queen Victoria is in that park; some how I don't think she would 'be amused' by this more recent (but temporary) statue...

Here's a closer look at Marilyn...quite a big statue isn't it??

While we were waiting for our 11.30 session at the gallery, DH took the opportunity to take some photos of the historic trams doing tours of the city...
But soon it was time...

And the last opportunity to take pictures before we went in...


To be honest I never really was a great fan of Marilyn Monroe as she had died long before I became a movie goer, but I did see some of her movies in my teens when they were shown on TV's midday movies during school holidays. But I love costumes so that's enough for me to want to see the exhibition. 
Well I wasn't disappointed! The costumes were magnificent! Many of her costumes are in private collections now and have been loaned by these owners for this Exhibition. 
But there were also clothes and accessories on show from her private life and they were beautifully made and were very classical in style; not showy or revealing in any way. On show was a loose 
shirtmaker frock that she wore during her pregnancy in 1958; she later miscarried. We saw makeup that she used in her off screen life, her books, records and some jewellery. I learned that she was quite an astute businesswoman, who renegotiated contracts with the studios who had been 'ripping her off' financially. She set up her own production company; the first woman to do this in Hollywood. There were lots of snippets of her movies showing in various places in the exhibition...a huge variety of roles...not just blonde bombshell type roles. I was quite impressed in fact.
What a great birthday gift! 



7 comments:

Cynthia said...

What a great birthday present, is right! How lovely of your hubby. Your photo of the Marilyn statue with Queen Victoria is hilarious. I don't imagine she would approve at all!

Nanna Chel said...

Glad you enjoyed the exhibition, Maria. I agree that Queen Victoria would thoroughly disapprove ;-)

margaret said...

loving the statue is it there permanently or just for the exhibition. I can imagine how amazing the exhibition was you are one lucky lady seeing it a great birthday treat.

Vireya said...

Welcome to Victoria!

I didn't walk around to the back of Marilyn to look at her undies. I didn't realise quite how expose they were!

Lin said...

Sounds like a great exhibition Maria. I love the statue and the way it has been positioned in relation to Victoria certainly would not have left her amused!

Carol- Beads and Birds said...

My husband was and still is a HUGE Marilyn fan. Our favorite Marilyn film is River of No Return. A statue like that was in Chicago for a while. I wonder if it is part of a traveling exhibit. It looks like you had a great BD present.
xx, Carol

Janine @ Rainbow Hare said...

That trip sounds like a great Birthday present. Very funny to see Marilyn and Queen Victoria together like that :)