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Lot Essay
Dean Swanson: 'You say that the theme of many of the dramas in your pictures is loneliness. This is apparent is such a painting as "Marilyn Was Here", where the figure is isolated, with no other people in the painting.
Richard Lindner: Yes, I think Marilyn Monroe was a victim of the misunderstanding of publicity in Hollywood which tried to create a star of the 1930s-no longer possible in the 1950s.
Dean Swanson: This is a very good example of a picture where the composition seems to reiterate the psychological theme of the painting, the shadow-half of the figure.'
(D. Swanson, "Richard Lindner, A Painter of figures, unique, brilliantly erotic," Vogue, 154, no. 3, August 1969, p. 142).
Richard Lindner's striking canvas Marilyn Was Here provides a unique blend of two of the most important traditions of twentieth century art history, European Modernism and American Pop. This commanding work combines the figurative traditions of Lindner's Germanic roots with the vibrant pop culture of his adopted home to produce a compulsive mix of form and color. The mysterious and shadowy figure of Marilyn Monroe is the central character in Lindner's world of sexual excess. But rather than being an object of desire, the kaleidoscope of bright, vibrant colours that envelope her mask a deeper, more introspective investigation into the nature of fame and identity in the twentieth century. Lindner confirmed the importance of this subject in an interview about the painting which was published in Vogue in August 1969. Interviewed by the curator Dean Swanson, Lindner explains he thought this particular canvas went to the very heart of what his work was trying to achieve.
This notion of identity is a cornerstone of Lindner's work. Like many of the artist's best paintings Marilyn Was Here acts a springboard into an investigation of self and the nature of identity. In Marilyn Monroe, Lindner picked the perfect subject; the dark figure of the Hollywood star, part in shadow and part mechanical creation, symbolizes the multi-faceted embodiment of the actress's persona. Are we looking at the Marilyn Monroe created by the Hollywood studio machine or the more elusive figure of Norma Jean Baker, the true woman hiding behind Marilyn's façade?
Marilyn Was Here comes from the respected collection of the computer pioneer Max Palevsky. Inspired by the mechanical nature of much of Lindner's work, Palevsky became an important collector of the artist's work and owned a number of important canvases, exhibiting them widely throughout both Europe and the United States. Despite the limited number of paintings Lindner completed during his lifetime (he only painted just over one hundred canvases), Palevsky built up one of the most important collections of the artist's work. Marilyn Was Here was one of his favourite Lindner paintings, demonstrated by the fact that he displayed the picture with pride in a prime position in the entrance hallway of his Malibu home, just a few steps from Palevsky's other prized painting, Fernand Leger's 1921 modernist masterpiece La Tasse de thé.
Richard Lindner: Yes, I think Marilyn Monroe was a victim of the misunderstanding of publicity in Hollywood which tried to create a star of the 1930s-no longer possible in the 1950s.
Dean Swanson: This is a very good example of a picture where the composition seems to reiterate the psychological theme of the painting, the shadow-half of the figure.'
(D. Swanson, "Richard Lindner, A Painter of figures, unique, brilliantly erotic," Vogue, 154, no. 3, August 1969, p. 142).
Richard Lindner's striking canvas Marilyn Was Here provides a unique blend of two of the most important traditions of twentieth century art history, European Modernism and American Pop. This commanding work combines the figurative traditions of Lindner's Germanic roots with the vibrant pop culture of his adopted home to produce a compulsive mix of form and color. The mysterious and shadowy figure of Marilyn Monroe is the central character in Lindner's world of sexual excess. But rather than being an object of desire, the kaleidoscope of bright, vibrant colours that envelope her mask a deeper, more introspective investigation into the nature of fame and identity in the twentieth century. Lindner confirmed the importance of this subject in an interview about the painting which was published in Vogue in August 1969. Interviewed by the curator Dean Swanson, Lindner explains he thought this particular canvas went to the very heart of what his work was trying to achieve.
This notion of identity is a cornerstone of Lindner's work. Like many of the artist's best paintings Marilyn Was Here acts a springboard into an investigation of self and the nature of identity. In Marilyn Monroe, Lindner picked the perfect subject; the dark figure of the Hollywood star, part in shadow and part mechanical creation, symbolizes the multi-faceted embodiment of the actress's persona. Are we looking at the Marilyn Monroe created by the Hollywood studio machine or the more elusive figure of Norma Jean Baker, the true woman hiding behind Marilyn's façade?
Marilyn Was Here comes from the respected collection of the computer pioneer Max Palevsky. Inspired by the mechanical nature of much of Lindner's work, Palevsky became an important collector of the artist's work and owned a number of important canvases, exhibiting them widely throughout both Europe and the United States. Despite the limited number of paintings Lindner completed during his lifetime (he only painted just over one hundred canvases), Palevsky built up one of the most important collections of the artist's work. Marilyn Was Here was one of his favourite Lindner paintings, demonstrated by the fact that he displayed the picture with pride in a prime position in the entrance hallway of his Malibu home, just a few steps from Palevsky's other prized painting, Fernand Leger's 1921 modernist masterpiece La Tasse de thé.