Skip to content

The Black Marilyn

1967/1998

Images

The Black Marilyn, a 102 by 102-inch black diamond shaped canvas. In the center of the painting is topless image of Monroe in front of a lilac star in a purple circle. Two rings of text surround this central image. The inner ring is black and contains the actress' name, Marilyn Monroe. Each lilac letter is in a separate purple ring, and separating her first and last name to the left and right of the inner circle is a purple numeral six in a lilac circle. The purple outer ring contains the actress' birth name, Norma Jean Mortenson, each individual purple letter in a lilac circle. Separating her first names and last name are two lilac purple numeral twos each in a purple circle.

The Black Marilyn

1967/1998

Oil on canvas

102 x 102 in. (259.1 x 259.1 cm), diamond

 

Artwork: © Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Description

The Black Marilyn is one of fifteen paintings by Robert Indiana that takes the actress Marilyn Monroe as its subject. Indiana began the work in 1967, the same year he painted his first Monroe themed work, The Metamorphosis of Norma Jean Mortensen. Identical in composition, The Black Marilyn employs a darker color scheme of puples against a black background. In both paintings an image of Monroe is surrounded by two rings, one containing her birth name and other the name she adopted as an actress. Also included are the years of her birth and death, ’26 and ’62.

Indiana completed The Black Marilyn over thirty years later, in 1998, inspired to return to the subject by the many books published around the thirty-fifth anniversary of the actress’s death, the death of Joe DiMaggio, and President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.