The Paci Contemporary Gallery is pleased to present ‘Bert Stern. Original Mad Man’, a photographic exhibition dedicated to the famous Hollywood photographer, universally known for his ‘The Last Sitting’, the last photo shoot dedicated to Marilyn Monroe in 1962, a few days before the actress’s untimely death.

The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Bert Stern Foundation ‘The Bert Stern Trust’, thanks to the invaluable collaboration of Shannah Laumeister Stern, wife of the famous photographer and President of the Foundation.

Bert Stern began his career as a press officer for Look Magazine. The launch of his career coincided with his iconic and legendary campaign for Smirnoff Vodka in 1955. Thanks to the brilliance of that work, he became a star in the world of advertising. The editorial work that followed and his collaboration with VOGUE took Bert Stern to the peak of his career in the 1960s. Sought after by Madison Avenue, Hollywood and the international fashion scene for decades, Stern became the prototype of the fashion photographer as the embodiment of glamour.

Stern’s photographs have been exhibited and/or are included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in Texas, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Canada, the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, the Musée Maillol in France, the Hermitage Museum in Russia and many others.

Among his most iconic shots, which can be admired in person at Paci Contemporary, are undoubtedly those dedicated to Marilyn Monroe. Bert Stern’s contract with VOGUE gave him creative freedom for 10 pages in each issue of the magazine. In June 1962, he chose to photograph Marilyn, and the shoot took place at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Marilyn died shortly afterwards, on 4 August 1962, at the age of thirty-six, and these photographs, 2571 to be exact, became known as “The Last Sitting”, the last photo shoot dedicated to the great diva. In the years that followed, the fame of these shots reached incredible proportions, thanks to their publication in combination with texts by Norman Mailer, edited by Lawrence Schiller and published by Taschen.

The exhibition, which can be visited until 27 February 2026, will be accompanied by a volume published by Dario Cimorelli Editore, with an introductory text by Bert Stern.