STERN, BERT
B, PHOTOGRAPHERS
BERT STERN (1929-2013) WAS AN AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER
Bert Stern, (1929 – 2013) was an American photographer. Born in Brooklyn, he began his career as an assistant to H. Bramson, art director of Look. Significantly, when he was just twenty he approached photography and film shooting during his military service. Henceforth, since ’53 he has been working in fashion and advertising. Notably, he is the first to present color advertising inserts which, due to the quality of the images, are hardly distinguishable from editorial services.
Marilyn Monroe Obsession
Bert is also known as a good portrait painter. Famous are his images of Marilyn Monroe taken in 1962 with complacent atmospheres for Vogue without yet knowing that it would be the actress’s last shoot. His commitment to photography is characterized by a style dominated by glamorous and romantic tones. He signed the 1985 Pirelli calendar with images of this kind.
2000, April. The volume Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting is presented in Rome at the Galleria Minima Peliti Associati, in the courtyard of Palazzo Borghese as part of the exhibition Marilyn Monroe – the last set. It was 1962 and it was the photographer’s idea to propose to Marilyn Monroe to pose for Vogue. On display are 23 photographs, from the collection of Davide Manfredi, taken by the famous American photographer who was the last to spend a long period of posing with the actress, six weeks before his death. During the three days of posing at the Bel-Air hotel, about 2700 fashion shots, portraits, and nudes were taken: as fate would have it, the 20 selected photographs were published (August 1962) when Marilyn was already dead. And so they became a memorial, Vogue‘s salute to Marilyn Monroe.
In 2008, photographed by Bert Stern for New York Magazine, the American actress Lindsay Lohan posed as Marilyn Monroe in her famous photo set ‘The Last Sitting’.
THE END OF WORK AND DEATH
The hectic life on the set, the travels, and the not-so-simple family situation leads him to abuse drugs. Unfortunately, this conduct leads him into a spiral of events that marks the end of his marriage. And, inevitably, also of his life. He will die in 2013 at the age of 83.
He leaves an immeasurable archive to history and over 2,500 photos taken of Marilyn Monroe taken a few weeks before her death in August 1962.
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