Lot 56 D

Marilyn Monroe, the icon of the movie industry, pertains to Andy Warhol's best-known and most executed motifs apart from the Campbell's Soup can. The press photograph by the movie producer Gene Korman, taken during the shooting of the movie Niagara, is the depiction's original image. Warhol acquires the photograph shortly after the death of the actress and his 'Marilyns' are created in the same year.
In 1967, Warhol founds the Factory Additions and begins to publish a series of screen-print portfolios. The present screen-print with the portrait of Marilyn Monroe pertains to the first and at the same time, most significant portfolio produced in his factory. 'For the earliest of these, Warhol chose one of his most famous paintings, his portrait of Marilyn Monroe. The production of the ten screenprints of Marilyn in 1967 was overseen by David Whitney, who selected most of the colors and submitted them to Warhol's approval. […] Although the Marilyn paintings had been realized in an array of colors, these went further: a palette of fiery reds, hot and pale pinks, and other saturated hues transforms Marilyn's face into even more of a fiction than the carefully crafted publicity still from which it was originally derived.'' (Donna de Salvo, God is in the details, the prints of Andy Warhol, p.21).