Gene London: TV Personality and Marilyn Collector Has Died

First posted here on January 28, 2020 Gene London, the television personality turned fashion designer who owned one of the world’s largest Hollywood costume collections, has died aged 88 after a fall at his home in Reading, Pennsylvania on January 19, 2020. He is survived by husband John Thomas, and will be buried alongside his...

Jack Allen To Sell Marilyn’s ‘Down Boy’, and More

First posted here on December 4, 2018 Marilyn By Moonlight author Jack Allen is selling off some items from his collection in the Essentially Marilyn auction on December 11, 2018, at Profiles In History – including photographs and the unreleased song, ‘Down Boy‘, as Mike Szymanski reports for Dreamweaver Arts. (The auction also features the...

Marilyn Brings ‘Warhol Avedon’ to London

First posted here on February 17th, 2016 ‘Warhol Avedon’, a new exhibition combining the works of pop artist Andy Warhol and photographer Richard Avedon, is on display until April 23 at The Gagosian in Britannia St, London (King’s Cross/St Pancras area.) Ash Moore reviews the exhibit for The 405, exploring the different ways in which Warhol and Avedon...

Sandra Chevier on Marilyn’s Superhero Struggle

First posted here on April 27th, 2016 Canadian artist Sandra Chevier’s Cages, currently on display at Above Second Gallery in Hong Kong, blends images of Marilyn and other iconic women with comic strip superheroes, as she explains in an interview for OPEN COLOR. “Art has always been a way for me to express myself, and also...

‘Little Sun’: Hannah Höch’s Dadaist Marilyn

First posted here on January 10th, 2014 The German Dada artist, Hannah Höch, is the subject of a retrospective exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery (on display from January 15th – March 23rd.) One of her late photo-montages, ‘Kleine Sonne’ (‘Little Sun’, 1969) depicts the grinning mouth of Marilyn Monroe hovering beside a fish’s eye. Her source may...

‘Waiting for Hockney’: Billy Pappas and Richard Avedon’s ‘Sad Marilyn’

First posted here on March 12th, 2011 Waiting for Hockney (2008) is Julie Checkoway's feature-length documentary about the artist Billy Pappas - who spent eight years recreating Richard Avedon’s iconic 1957 portrait known as 'Sad Marilyn', using magnifying lenses, in a large, finely detailed pencil drawing. This ambitious, if befuddling project, which Pappas aimed to present...

Richard Avedon’s ‘Sad Marilyn’ Plate Sold for $75K

First posted here on April 6th, 2019 Richard Avedon’s melancholic 1957 portrait of Marilyn, one of 35 plates printed in 1970 as part of a ‘Minneapolis Portfolio’, fetched an impressive $75,000 today in a Photographs auction at Sotheby’s in New York. ‘Nothing Personal’: Richard Avedon’s Marilyn First posted here on November 6th, 2017 Nothing Personal, Richard Avedon's...

Richard Avedon’s Marilyn: A Persistent Memory

First posted here on February 4th, 2018 Taken at the end of a long sitting in 1957, the portrait now known as ‘Sad Marilyn’ has become one of her most iconic images, and a stand-out in her collaborations with Richard Avedon. Mark McClish, who worked with Avedon during the 1990s, names it as a favourite...

Beloved Collaborators: Richard Avedon, Truman Capote and Marilyn

First posted here on February 5th, 2018 Richard Avedon and Marilyn had a dear mutual friend – the novelist Truman Capote, who provided the text for Avedon’s 1959 book, Observations. "Truman leapt at Dick’s invitation to collaborate on a book project. He sent his text to Dick in stages, written in his fussy little hand on...

Richard Avedon’s Marilyn: Fabled Enchantments, and More

First posted here on February 4th, 2018 Penny Cobbs, who worked for Richard Avedon during the 1980s, has described their collaboration on a series of posters based on his ‘Fabled Enchantresses’ sessions with Marilyn. “We did four Marilyns – her impersonating the old-time sex symbols Jean Harlow, Theda Bara, Clara Bow, and Lillian Russell –...