(Pittsburgh 1928–1987 New York)
“Marilyn”, 1967, signed Andy Warhol on the reverse, colour serigraphy on stiff paper, 91.4 x 91.4 cm, 1967, stamped no. 115 from an edition of 250, framed, (PS)

Literature:
Frayda Feldman/Jörg Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints, A Catalogue Raisonné 1962–1987, Munich 1997, II.25

Provenance:
Galleria Lucio Amelio, Naples
Collection Graziella and Eugenio Buontempo Lonardi, Naples

This sheet comes from the Marilyn Monroe portfolio with its ten colour serigraphs in a variety of colour combinations. The model for Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn” is a cinema still from the 1953 film Niagara. Warhol’s large series of Marilyn Monroe pictures were executed shortly after her death in 1962. Packaged as a consumer article and intended for a wide public, it confirmed Marilyn’s role as a sex symbol from the 1960s. Her face is presented as an impenetrable mask. The colours reflected by the surface show how easily the mask can be manipulated, glamorous or light, dazzling or calm, broken or self-assured. In his portraits Warhol almost always focused on the superficial appearance, for which “glamorous” women needed lipstick, eye shadow and a rigid smile, a reaction to the camera. They are designed to portray the images the public wants, or needs, to project onto people, transforming them into cult symbols. People whose faces always appear as if lit by a photoflash.