Cecil Beaton’s Marilyn Monroe photo goes on show in London

"She romps, she squeals with delight, she leaps on to the sofa," the photographer Cecil Beaton wrote of Marilyn Monroe after he photographed her at the Ambassador Hotel, New York, in 1956. "She puts a flower stem in her mouth, puffing on a daisy as though it were a cigarette. It is an artless, impromptu, high-spirited, infectiously gay performance. It will probably end in tears."

Now the photograph he describes (above) will form part of the first selling show of Beaton's prints for more than 20 years. Other iconic works which can been seen at London's Chris Beetles Gallery from April 22 include portraits of Audrey Hepburn, Pablo Picasso and Queen Elizabeth II.

The show has been put on in collaboration with Sotheby's, which acquired the Beaton archive in 1977, three years before the photographer's death. ·