Bert Stern

BERT STERN (Brooklyn, 1929 - Manhattan, 2013).
"Not bad for 36 (Marilyn Monroe)," 1962.
Photograph, copy 11/50.
Signed and justified on the back.
Measurements: 48 x 38 cm; 66 x 52.5 cm(frame).
American fashion and celebrity photographer, his best known work is The Last Sitting, a collection of 2,571 photographs taken of Marilyn Monroe in 1962 at the Bel-Air Hotel in Los Angeles. This reportage was taken six months before her death and part of it was published in Vogue. The first edition of the book The Last Sitting was published in 1982 and in it Stern recounts the encounter in detail. He began working as an art assistant to director Herschel Bramson. In 1951 he joined Mayfair magazine as art director and soon began his collaboration with magazines such as Vogue, Squire, Look, Life, Glamour and Holiday. Among his works from that period is a 1959 portrait of Louis Armstrong taken for a Polaroid advertising campaign that was even considered too high quality for Polaroid. In the early seventies he closed his studio and moved to live in Spain until 1976. After his return to New York he dedicated himself to advertising photography and magazine collaborations. Among the famous women he has photographed are Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Drew Barrymore, Shirley MacLaine, Claudia Cardinale, Jacqueline Bisset, Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve. He also worked for the film industry: Lolita in 1962, Appointment with a very special angel in 1987 or in American masters in 2006; as director and producer in Jazz on a Summer's Day (together with Aram Avakian) in 1958 or as the protagonist in Becoming Bert Stern in 2009. He died at his residence in Manhattan, on June 26, 2013, at the age of 83 without the causes of his death having been clarified.