Marilyn Monroe Pop Art

Marilyn Monroe Pop Art began in 1967 when Andy Warhol established a print-publishing business, Factory Additions, through which he published a series of screenprint portfolios on his signature subjects. Marilyn Monroe was the first one.  Since then, many artists have used portraits of Marilyn Monroe in their artworks which helped create her into an icon.

 

 

Warhol is regarded as one of the most well known appropriation artists and he often made use of publicity photographs and publicly available photographs and motifs not owned by him, which often brought him into conflict with the owners of the source material. An example of this is Warhol’s Marilyn series including the Marilyn Diptych, which resulted in a settlement with the owner of the Marilyn Monroe publicity photograph which he used as the source material for the paintings.

 

Marilyn Monroe was and still remains one of the biggest sex symbols of all time. When she was alive, her personal life was more interesting than her professional one. She had already been married several times. Like many of her fans, Warhol had become fascinated by the idea of popular figures such as Monroe who lived unimaginably glamorous lifestyles and who had attained an almost mythical status as Hollywood icons.

 

 

It was pure coincidence that Warhol chose Monroe to feature in his earliest and possibly most famous works of pop art. Although she had already ended her life at the time of the painting, her face and her fame provided Warhol with an excellent basis for his repetitive print and animation-like work in the future.