Bert Stern was an American photographer best known for his iconic portraits of Marilyn Monroe. With a photo shoot that took place in 1962 just weeks before the actress’ death, Stern later compiled his image into the photobook Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting, first published in 1982. Born on October 3, 1929 in Brooklyn, NY, Stern taught himself how to take photographs as a youth. Over the course of his career, Stern changed the landscape of fashion and advertising photography by creating dynamic, stand-alone images that no longer existed simply to serve the text.
He emerged alongside Richard Avedon, Mark Shaw, and Irving Penn as a pioneer of this new, confrontational style. Stern died at the age of 83 on June 26, 2013 in New York, NY. Notable exhibitions of his work include “I Wanna Be Loved By You: Photographs of Marilyn Monroe” shown at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and “The Last Sitting” at the Musée Maillol in Paris.