BERT STERN (1929 – 2013) SELF-PORTRAIT WITH MARILYN, 1962; blue-toned gelatin silver print, printed 1991; 6 3/4 x 9 3/4 in. (image); 11 x 14 in. (sheet); signed recto with inscriptions verso. Condition: Excellent. BSN-0001

Self-portrait of Bert Stern and Marilyn Monroe. This photograph was made over a three-day period, at the Bel Aire Hotel in Los Angeles, six weeks before Monroe’s death, in what became known as “the Last Sitting.”

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BERT STERN

Bert Stern was born in Brooklyn, New York. In 1947, Stern took a job as a messenger and clerk in the mailroom of Look Magazine. Art Director Herschel Bramson recognized his talents and encouraged him to pursue a photography career. After learning as much as he could about art history, Stern left to become the art director at Mayfair Magazine, where he started taking his first photographs. He was drafted in 1951 and talked his way into an army job as a motion picture cameraman in Japan.

After being released from the army in 1953, Stern was hired to photograph the print advertisements for Smirnoff Vodka. These images were considered to be a striking breakthrough in style, as they looked more like editorial photography than advertising. Utilizing a huge and lavishly equipped studio, Stern experimented with many unconventional techniques, including videotape, screen-printing, photo-offset combinations and computerized printouts. He continued to photograph the advertising campaigns for brands such as Canon, Dupont, Pepsi-Cola, US Steel, and Volkswagen. His work appeared in VOGUE Magazine and other publications throughout the 1960's and he was recognized as the prototype of the fashion photographer as media star, as his images of models and celebrities became icons for the next generation of fashion photographers.

Stern’s best-known body of work is a collection of over 2,500 photographs taken of Marilyn Monroe over a three-day period at the Bel Aire Hotel, six weeks before her death. These were the last posed photographs taken of Monroe, and the portfolio has come to be known as "The Last Sitting." The photographs were commissioned by VOGUE Magazine, and several of the images appeared in a commemorative issue following Monroe’s sudden death. A book containing these photographs, including copies of proofs over which Monroe had written comments or crossed her own image out with lipstick, was published in 1992 (and again in 2000) as Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting.

In 2011, the feature-length documentary Bert Stern: Original Mad Man was released, in which Stern spoke candidly about the joys and tribulations of his career as a photographer. Stern’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the George Eastman House, The Morgan Library and Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and other institutions. Bert Stern died in 2013 in New York. ©Staley-Wise Gallery

Excellent

11 x 14 in