With the Super Bowl halftime show fresh in our mind, we often forget about the women before Shakira and J-Lo. While they are outstanding and beyond talented, we should not forget about the people who came before. Specifically, Marilyn Monroe. She was a timeless beauty and ahead of her time in terms of talent.
Lucky for us, we had a chance to re-appreciate everything Marilyn Monroe at The Red Party. The event went down at the HGU Hotel where Keyes Art in collaboration with the Bert Stern Trust released new limited edition prints from The Last Sitting with Marilyn Monroe. The Valentine’s Day photographic show featured the iconic imagery of Bert Stern’s renowned final photo-shoot, of Marilyn Monroe. Photographic artworks featured sepia toned prints along with black & white hauntingly beautiful images with streaks of themes in red. The works were all sourced from the personal archives of Bert Sterns’ Marilyn Monroe, The Last Sitting® series never before seen larger than life sized editions.
The pop-up exhibit had our jaws down and happy to know that we can stop by Gallery 151 pop-up at HGU New York if we need a fix. At least until April 13, 2020. The event included lots of bubbly and light bites and cocktails by Lumaca, Chef John DeLucie’s newly opened Italian restaurant in HGU New York Hotel. As a result of the pop-up, we have already made our reservations for Valentines Day. We recommend that you do the same. If the bites were a preview, then the feature will be unforgettable.
The images on display were a result of the famed Marilyn Monroe photo-shoot by Bert Stern commissioned by Vogue magazine in June 1962. The images, captured over three sessions, would end up being the last sitting with Marilyn before her untimely death six weeks later. Playful and elegant, the collection of photographs became known as “The Last Sitting.”
All pieces in the exhibition are sourced from the personal archives of Bert Sterns’ Marilyn Monroe, The Last Sitting, and are available in never-before-released, large-size editions of eight. All pieces are available for purchase, with 10 percent of the proceeds going to the Red Cross For Australian Wildfires Disaster Relief.
HGU New York features constantly rotating collections of artwork curated through an exclusive partnership with Chelsea’s Gallery 151. The hotel boasts more than 200 permanent and rotating pieces of artwork throughout the property, from photography to digital art installations. Each piece has been acquired from the primary art market, directly purchased from and benefiting the artists themselves. Current works on display include pieces by Sebastian Piras, Ralph Gibson, Lee Jaffe, Robert Weingarten, Marcia Reznick, a selection from the “Girlfriends of the Rolling Stones” series by Liz Markus, and Anna Friemoth’s “Words for Women” series.