Marilyn Monroe

Andy Warhol had acquired the stunning publicity shot less than 24 hours after her death. The photograph was taken by Eugene Kornman. Warhol had never asked permission to use the photograph and never paid Eugene Kornman or his Estate for its use. Warhol had cropped the original photograph. Pop artist Andy Warhol’s portrait of Marilyn Monroe is now the most expensive piece of artwork by an American artist ever sold at auction, after the colorful silk screen sold for a record-breaking $195 million. The original camera negative has not been located, but the vintage large format copy negative from which the prints have been made, was recently found in the famous Movie Star News Archive, hidden in an old filing cabinet that had not been opened in half a century.

Photo by Eugene Kornman