RICHARD AVEDON (1923–2004)

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

Details

RICHARD AVEDON (1923–2004)
Marilyn Monroe, actress, New York City, May 6, 1957
gelatin silver print, flush-mounted on linen, printed 1980
signed and numbered '5/25' in ink, stamped copyright credit, title, date and edition (flush mount, verso)
image: 13 x 10 5/8 in. (33 x 27.1 cm.)
sheet/flush mount: 13 7/8 x 10 7/8 in. (35.1 x 27.4 cm.)
This work is number five from an edition of twenty-five

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner, 1980.

Literature

Richard Avedon and James Baldwin, Nothing Personal, Atheneum, New York, 1964, n.p. (variant).
Richard Avedon, Portraits, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1976, n.p. (variant).
Richard Avedon, An Autobiography, Random House, New York, 1993, pl. 134 (variant).
Jane Livingston and Adam Gopnik, Evidence, 1944-1994, Random House, New York, 1994, p. 138 (variant).
Maria Hambourg and Mia Fineman, Richard Avedon Portraits, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 2002, n.p. (variant).

Brought to you by

Rebecca Jones

rjones@christies.com +1 212 636 2330

Lot Essay

“She is a beautiful child. I don’t think she’s an actress at all, not in a traditional sense. What she has – this presence, this luminosity, this flickering intelligence - could never surface on the stage. It’s so fragile and subtle, it can only be caught by the camera. But anyone who thinks this girl is simply another Harlow or harlot or whatever is mad. I hope, I really pray, that she survives long enough to free the strange lovely talent that’s wandering through her like a jailed spirit.” — Constance Collier

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