''Shot Marilyns'' is a series of
silkscreen
Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open me ...
paintings produced
in 1964 by
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...
, each canvas measuring 40 inches square, and each a portrait of
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...
.
History
Pop artist Andy Warhol had a fascination with
Hollywood and fame. A legend of the
silver screen
A silver screen, also known as a silver lenticular screen, is a type of projection screen that was popular in the early years of the motion picture industry and passed into popular usage as a metonym for the cinema industry. The term silver scree ...
, Marilyn Monroe is widely considered to be the epitome of Hollywood glamour. After her death at the age of 36 in August 1962, Warhol began immortalizing her in his work.
"In August '62 I started doing
silkscreens.... It was all so simple-quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it. My first experiments with screens were heads of
Troy Donahue
Troy Donahue (born Merle Johnson Jr., January 27, 1936 – September 2, 2001) was an American film and television actor and singer. He was a popular sex symbol in the 1950s and 1960s.
Biography Early years
Born in New York City, Donahue was ...
and
Warren Beatty
Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...
, and then when Marilyn Monroe happened to die that month, I got the idea to make screens of her beautiful face — the first ''Marilyns''."
In 1964, Warhol created portraits of Monroe based on a publicity photo for her 1953 film ''
Niagara''.
He painted five Marilyn silkscreen portraits with different colored backgrounds: red, orange, light blue, sage blue, and turquoise,
and stored them at
The Factory
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstar ...
, his studio on East 47th Street in Manhattan.
Shooting
Dorothy Podber
Dorothy Podber (September 15, 1932 – February 9, 2008) was an American performance artist.
Born in the Bronx to a mother who had tried repeatedly to abort her, and to a father who worked for the Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz, Podber was later re ...
, a
performance artist
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
and friend of Factory photographer
Billy Name
William George Linich (February 22, 1940 – July 18, 2016), known professionally as Billy Name, was an American photographer, filmmaker, and lighting designer. He was the archivist of The Factory from 1964 to 1970. His brief romance and subsequ ...
, saw the recently completed paintings stacked against one another at the studio and asked Warhol if she could shoot them. Believing that she intended to photograph the paintings, Warhol agreed.
[Dorothy Podber: 'Witch' who shot Warhol's Marilyns](_blank)
Charles Darwent. 13 March 2008. Podber doffed her pair of black gloves, withdrew a small revolver from her purse, and fired a shot into the stack of four paintings, which became known as ''The Shot Marilyns.'' The fifth painting with the turquoise background was not in the stack.
In the 2002 documentary ''
How to Draw a Bunny'', Name described this event as a "performance piece" by Podber. After she had shot the paintings and left, Andy Warhol purportedly asked Name to please ask Podber not to do that again. She was, however, henceforth barred from The Factory for life.
Acquisitions
''Blue Shot Marilyn'' was purchased by
Peter Brant
Peter Mark Brant Sr. (born March 1, 1947) is an American industrialist, as well as a magazine publisher, film producer, and art collector. He is married to model Stephanie Seymour.
Early life and education
Brant was raised in Jamaica Estate ...
for $5,000 in 1967.
''Shot Red Marilyn'' was sold to Masao Wanibuchi for $4.1 million at
Christie's in 1989. In the midst of an art market recession, he sold it at a loss to
Philip Niarchos
Philip Niarchos (alternately: Philippos or Philippe; el, Φίλιππος Νιάρχος) (born 1954) is a Greek billionaire, the eldest son of the Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos and Eugenia Livanos, herself the elder ...
for $3.6 million in 1994.
''Orange Marilyn'' was bought for $17.3 million by
Si Newhouse in 1998. After his death,
Kenneth C. Griffin
Kenneth Cordele Griffin (born October 15, 1968) is an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder, chief executive officer, co-chief investment officer, and 80% owner of Citadel LLC, a multinational hedge fund. He ...
purchased it for around $200 million in 2017.
''Turquoise Marilyn'' was bought by
Steve Cohen in 2007 for a rumored $80 million.
''Shot Sage Blue Marilyn'' was auctioned by Christie's in New York City on May 9, 2022. It sold for $195 million from the Foundation of Thomas and Doris Ammann. This sale greatly extended the record for a price paid at auction for a work by an American artist set by
Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1982 painting ''
Untitled
Untitled or (Untitled) may refer to:
Artworks
* '' Untitled (2004)'', by Banksy
* ''Untitled'' (1982 painting), by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat
* ''Untitled'' (Devil), a 1982 painting by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat
* ''Untitled ...
'', which sold for $110.5 million in 2017. It also set the mark for the most expensive work of
20th century art sold in a public sale.
The purchaser was the American art dealer
Larry Gagosian
Lawrence Gilbert "Larry" Gagosian (born April 19, 1945) is an American art dealer who owns the Gagosian Gallery chain of art galleries. Working in concert with collectors including Douglas S. Cramer, Eli Broad, and Keith Barish, he developed a ...
. It has not been disclosed as of yet whether he was buying the work for himself or a secondary party.
See also
* ''
Gold Marilyn Monroe
''Gold Marilyn Monroe'' is an art piece by Andy Warhol composed of a photograph of actress Marilyn Monroe's face centered on a large ( x ) gold-painted canvas. Warhol used silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on canvas. It was completed in 1 ...
'', 1962
* ''
Marilyn Diptych
The ''Marilyn Diptych'' (1962) is a silkscreen painting by American pop artist Andy Warhol depicting Marilyn Monroe. The monumental work is one of the artist's most noted of the movie star.
The painting consists of 50 images. Each image of t ...
'', 1962
*
List of most expensive paintings
This is a list of the highest known prices paid for paintings. The current record price is approximately United States dollar, US$450.3 million (which includes Commission (remuneration), commission), paid for Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi (L ...
References
* Livingstone, Marco (ed.), ''Pop Art: An International Perspective'', The Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1991,
* Stokstad, Marilyn, ''Art History'', 1995, Prentice Hall, Inc., and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers,
* Vogel, Carol (1998)
''The New York Times'': INSIDE ART; Perhaps Shot, Perhaps Not Retrieved January 4, 2008.
* Warhol, Andy and Pat Hackett, ''Popism: The Warhol Sixties'', Harcourt Books, 1980,
*
Watson, Steven, ''Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties'', Pantheon Books, 2003.
External links
Dorothy Podber obit
{{Performance art
1964 paintings
Paintings by Andy Warhol
Painting series
Cultural depictions of Marilyn Monroe
Performance art