Some Like It Hot!

The dazzling blond sex symbol Marilyn Monroe, icon of the twentieth century, was born on this day in 1926.

Shortly after the death of Marilyn Monroe, Pop artist Andy Warhol helped create the Marilyn iconography through a series of silkscreen prints. Warhol produced these mask-like portraits using a particular process.

"From autumn 1962, Warhol's paintings were made almost exclusively by screenprinting photographic images on to backgrounds painted either in a single colour or in flat interlocking areas that corresponded approximately to the contours of the superimposed images. In these works … he succeeded in … challenging the concept of the unique art work by repeating the same mechanically produced image until it appeared to be drained of all meaning."

Source: Grove Dictionary of Art Online at http://www.groveart.com.

Pictured: Andy Warhol, 1928–87, Marilyn, 1967, serigraph, 36 x 36 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase with the aid of funds from Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Kainen and the National Endowment for the Arts.