Great Art Explained — Season 1, Episode 8: Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych

Episode synopsis

Andy Warhol made “Marilyn Diptych” in 1962, right after Marilyn Monroe’s death. By the 1960s Marilyn’s film career as a sex symbol was all but over. Warhol would effectively immortalize Marilyn as the sex symbol of the 20th century. The seductive blonde Marilyn with the heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips is frozen in time. She is transformed into the personification of the allure and glamour of Hollywood's Golden Age. Marilyn would make Warhol a household name, and Warhol would make Marilyn an icon. Marilyn Diptych is perhaps his greatest canvas, bringing together celebrity, death and exposure. It is both a warning and a love letter to America. Warhol, who is often criticised as vacuous or superficial, produced art, that is profoundly subversive and quite simply a perfect mirror of our times. Andy Warhol and Marilyn Monroe were both the embodiment of the American dream. They also, both projected a vacant persona that made sure no-body knew the real person behind the mask.

About Great Art Explained

Great Art Explained is a video series that focuses on one piece of art per episode, breaking it down, using clear and concise language free of 'art-speak'.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (short version)
• E2Picasso’s Guernica
• E3Michelangelo's David
• E4The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault
• E5Frida Kahlo's 'The Two Fridas"
• E6The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck
• E7Artemisia Gentileschi
• E9Monet's Water Lilies
• E10Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals
• E11The Thinker by Rodin