Warhol made this painting the year screen legend Marilyn Monroe
committed suicide. He painted the canvas an iridescent gold and
silkscreened the star’s face in the center of the composition.
Like other paintings by Warhol that feature Monroe’s likeness,
this work is based on a 1953 publicity still for the movie
Niagara. By duplicating a photograph known to millions, Warhol
undermined the uniqueness and authenticity characteristic of
traditional portraiture. Instead he presented Monroe as an
infinitely reproducible image. Director, Glenn Lowry: Warhol
created Gold Marilyn Monroe in 1962, the year of Monroes death.
Curator, Anne Umland: This image was based on a pose, a
photograph used for publicity purposes for the film Niagara in
1953. When you look at it close up, there are all sorts of
smudges, blurs, imperfections that I think keep speaking to us
of Marilyn lost to the world. Her image is no longer immediate.
Her eye shadow sorts of slides down a little bit into her eyes.
The lipstick is a little bit off-r