Schoeni Art Gallery will be hosting the first ever photography exhibition in our gallery space, entitled “Marilyn Monroe and America in the 1960s,” by renowned photographer Lawrence Schiller from 7 – 28 December 2007 at our Hollywood Road Branch. The exhibition features an array of images that document this important era with unique and visually exciting works that “speak history,” and showcase the exceptional perspective of celebrated photographer/writer/filmmaker Lawrence Schiller who has received countless awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, Academy Award and New York Times Bestseller rankings. Armed with a camera, Schiller presents to us politically charged moments in history with sharp and saturated tones of turmoil – entirely drenched in Schiller’s trademark realism and also acutely vivid due to his highly trained photo-journalistic eye. Before the days of Photoshop, photography was understood to be the most true and reliable medium, able to capture every detail of a moment in one “click”. Since the 1960s, Schiller’s works have appeared in countless international publications, documenting the world around us through a series of dynamic, and furthermore iconic, images. Schiller was ahead of his time, and the vibrancy of the movement and emotional space that his images span, inspire an eerie feel of some lingering force beyond this 2-dimensional medium. Indeed, this exhibition presents imagery that is beautiful and poignant, and significantly, flawlessly executed. The 60s was a time of radical change, and denote a time of unfolding complex patterns in inter-related political and cultural revolution. Schiller captures this national dialogue, and his works visually echo some of the greatest moments and personalities that we remember decades on. Examples include the serendipitous and widely sought after portraits of America’s sweetheart and notorious sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe. With all the experimentation going on to increase one’s awareness and spiritual scope of the world, no one was ready for the first glimpse of nudity to appear on the silver screens of Hollywood, and the film Something’s Got to Give, forever immortalised Marilyn Monroe jumping into the swimming pool scantily clad in a nude-coloured bikini, and emerging completely in the nude. "There was a line in the script that said she appears nude," remembers Lawrence Schiller, the lauded photographer/writer/film producer who was on the set that fated day to shoot a story about Monroe for Paris Match magazine. "[The script] didn't say that she was going to be nude. [It said] she 'appears' nude. So you figured she was going to wear a flesh-colored bathing suit, but you had no idea what was going to take place." Only months before Marilyn Monroe sang her unforgettable rendition of Happy Birthday, and less than half a year prior to her death, just one photographer captured these fleeting moments in still images, indeed the last photos to be taken of this silver screen icon – this acclaimed photographer is Lawrence Schiller.