Lot 632 D

Shortly after Marilyn Monroe's death in 1962, Andy Warhol acquired a press photograph depicting the actress in her role as Rose Loomis in the film Niagara from 1953. The portrait shows Marilyn in a low-cut black dress with a white collar. In the same year, Warhol orders a screen print template and his first Marilyn is produced. While this early example still has the classical portrait format, Warhol went on to use a square format for his subsequent Marilyns. With each further cut he produced for the various screen prints (1964 and 1967), the image becomes progressively tighter around Marilyn's face and the viewer moves steadily closer to the film icon. With the absence of distance, Warhol reinforces the objectuality of his depiction, particularly evident in the colour serigraphs published in 1967.