Michel Eisenlohr - Ouvrage des Gondrans 2020
No. 18639349
Bert Stern (1929-2013) - Marilyn Monroe, 'Crucifix III, The last sitting', 1962
No. 18639349
Bert Stern (1929-2013) - Marilyn Monroe, 'Crucifix III, The last sitting', 1962
One of the images that Marilyn Monroe crossed out with her orange lipstick, apparently not liking it.
From the 1962 last sitting.
Printed in 2012.
Signed and numbered front.
Signed and copyright stamped by Bert Stern reverse.
Supplied with Bert Stern Certificate Of Authenticity.
Free worldwide shipping.
Arguably the most influential advertising photographer of the 1950s, the time when, as portrayed in the television show Mad Men, Madison Avenue was at its self-confident peak, Bert Stern also excelled as a photographer of glamour. It was this talent which got him assigned to the shoot for which he will be best remembered, the so-called "Last Sitting" with Marilyn Monroe.
In June 1962, Vogue assigned Stern to photograph the actress, and during a 12-hour session in the Bel-Air hotel in Los Angeles she posed nude, wrapped in sheets or draped in pearls, diaphanous scarves, and paper flowers. Legend has it Stern's first words to Monroe were, "You're beautiful," and she replied, "What a nice thing to say." Stern was a notorious womaniser, but his fashion shoots were also marked by their informality, and the pair clicked.
"I didn't say: 'Pose nude,'" Stern explained. "It was more one thing leading to another: You take clothes off and off and off and off and off." Vogue was so pleased with the colour shots they sent Stern back for another two days, shooting mainly black and white. But by the time the pages were laid out for the magazine in early August, Marilyn Monroe was dead. Although they were not the last photographs of her, the Last Sitting had become iconic, and in 2000 The Complete Last Sitting published all 2,571 photos, including those whose negatives Monroe had rejected by scratching Xs into them.
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