BERT STERN

In 1962 Bert Stern is a photographer known for his portrait skills: he is an icon hunter and manages to immortalize several movie stars. On the plane back from Rome, where he photographed Liz Taylor on the set of “Cleopatra,” he cherishes a dream, that of photographing Marilyn Monroe. As soon as he arrives in New York, he proposes to Vogue the idea of doing a photo report on the actress whom Stern himself will call “The first American love goddess.” The magazine’s editorial staff enthusiastically accepts the proposal.

Events quickly unfold, Marilyn agrees to pose for him, and Stern’s dream comes true. The photographer chooses a suite at the Bel-Air hotel in Los Angeles as his set. The light is minimal and Stern waits for Marilyn uneasily since the actress is known for her strange behavior and tantrums. After a five-hour delay Marilyn shows up at the hotel and it all begins. She agrees to pose naked and without makeup. The result is outstanding, but the images are too osées for Vogue, which proposes to Stern to photograph her again, this time in makeup and clothes. After she died, a day before the photos were released in Vogue.

The photo shoot consists of 2571 photos taken over three days and is known as “The Last Sitting,” the last shoot of the great diva before her death, fully published in a large volume edited by Taschen.

In these shots Marilyn captured the imagination definitively, not as a sex symbol, but as a work of art: wonderful, tragic, forever 36 years old.

The Paci contemporary gallery, signing an agreement with the Stern Foundation, is from 2025, the artist’s exclusive dealer for Europe.