Andy Warhol

 “The irony of Andy Warhol's ‘Marilyn’ is that it is an icon of an icon created by an icon.” (Isabella Geist, "Warhol's 'Marilyn'," Forbes Magazine, 24 April 2002 (online))

In 1966, together with the art dealer David Whitney, Warhol began publishing print portfolios under the name Factory Additions, utilizing some of his most famous subjects, including Marilyn, Campbell’s Soup and Flowers. Published in 1967, Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn) was the first of the Factory Additions projects, and it has since remained among the most celebrated of all of Warhol’s graphic productions. The Marilyn prints were the first technically complex prints the artist made. Using the same publicity image from the 1953 film Niagara, purchased shortly after Marilyn’s tragic death and used in a series of over twenty screenprinted canvases, the set of ten works were printed in a wide variety of color combinations with slight differences in registration. Upon examination of the full set together, the divergent hues and subtle shifts in registration have the effect of transforming the image of Marilyn, from “dazzling or sedate, frazzled or assured, glamorous or gaudy.” (Roberta Bernstein, "Warhol as Printmaker," p. 16)

Moreover, with the image of Marilyn, Warhol found the perfect confluence of celebrity, disaster and mass media – themes that fascinated the artist throughout his career. Marilyn Monroe personified the cult of celebrity, beauty and Hollywood glamor – but after her untimely demise, she epitomized loneliness, tragedy and the unfulfilled promise of the American dream. The use of intense flat but vibrant color often printed off-register heightened the sense of mask-like artificiality, capturing Marilyn’s immortal beauty and offering it up for perpetual consumption.