Organized by Archives du Palais Princier and by the Institut audiovisuel de Monaco, the exhibition Monaco 6 mai 1955. Histoire d'une reencontre shows a perspective of the first meeting of Grace Kelly, in the same year the actress/Princess would be celebrating her ninetieth birthday with Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
Having been awarded in 1955 with the Academy Award for best actress for her performance in The Country Girl, Grace Kelly had been in Côte d'Azur the previous year to record the film of Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief, and one of the scenes was even recorded in the domes of the Principality. As the world is full of coincidences, the actress was the star guest of the 8th edition of the Cannes Film Festival and, at the last minute agreed to change her schedule for a meeting with the Prince of Monaco, in the afternoon of 6th May 1955.
The meeting was immortalized by the photographer of the magazine Paris Match, Michel Simon, as well as by Edward Quinn, an Irish photographer who worked for some years at Riviera. The photos taken by both privileged witnesses are now displayed together for the first time and attest the interest and technical and artistic quality of the work of the press photographers. As a photographic journey, the exhibition brings back the steps of Grace Kelly, the places where she met her Prince and all the details that were unnoticed at the time, as the dress she wore, personal items, letters, statements, excerpts from newspapers and films. On 18th and 19th April 1956, less than a year after this short but decisive meeting, Prince Rainier III married in Monaco, with Grace Patricia Kelly. The exhibition was inaugurated on 14th May and will be on display until October 15th 2019, in Les Grands Appartements of the Palais Princier in Monaco.
