Marilyn Monroe, actress, New York City, May 6, 1957

Avedon’s Marilyn Monroe, actress attests to a realist aesthetic and clinical perspective, opening onto the imperfections and wounds of the icons of the 1960s, unveiling the secrets behind the myths and the underside of glamour. Paradoxically, this iconoclastic stance only enhanced the status of the photographer’s “mythologue” (the term is borrowed from Roland Barthes) and the status of the icon of the subject matter, contributing to a heroic visual anthology of America. The actress Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) is the very embodiment of the second golden age of the Hollywood studios. Her aura can be measured by the volume of Pop Art works made in her image from the 1960s into the following decades. Avedon met the challenge of producing a portrait of the actress stripped of her mask, her eyes empty and lost.

This work was first presented by the Pinault Collection in the exhibition « Forever Sixties » at the Couvent des Jacobins in Rennes (2023).