Marilyn F&S II 23

Every print in Warhol's ten-part Marilyn Monroe portfolio comes from the same source: one publicity photograph 20th Century-Fox released in 1953 for Niagara. Warhol had already used the image once, within weeks of Monroe's death in August 1962. Returning to it in 1967, he cropped it down to a single flat plane and ran it through ten unrelated color combinations, treating the photograph less as a portrait and more as raw material for a printing process. Nothing about the underlying image changes from sheet to sheet. Only the color does, which is the point: fame reduced to a swappable palette.

This impression, catalogued as F. & S. II.23, pairs a turquoise ground with a yellow-orange wig, pale pink skin, mint eyelids, and a hard red mouth. It comes from the edition of 250 plus 26 lettered artist's proofs, published by Factory Additions and printed by Aetna Silkscreen Products, New York, the same production run behind the most recognized image in postwar American art.

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