More than 50 years after her death, bombshell Marilyn Monroe can still generate a good buzz, and a rare print of the beauty was expected to net as much as $60,000 at a much-publicized Vancouver auction November 5.
Bidding at the Maynards Fine Arts and Antiques auction fell short, however, only reaching $38,000, at which point the auctioneer said it was sold – but this is not actually the case, Maynards told Business in Vancouver.
“The reserve [price of $40,000 set by the consigner] was not met,” said Kate Bellringer, expert in contemporary and Canadian art at Maynards.
Bellringer said she wasn’t sure if the piece was going to go back on the block anytime soon.
“I’ll have to discuss it with the consigner.”
The photographer, Richard Avedon, is said to have captured the image in New York in 1957 at the end of a long day; the star appears tired, lacking her usual verve.
“For hours she danced and sang and flirted and did this thing that’s—she didMarilyn Monroe,” Avedon is quoted by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York as saying about the photo. “And then there was the inevitable drop.
“And when the night was over and the white wine was over and the dancing was over, she sat in the corner like a child, with everything gone.”
Before bidding started at Maynards, the auctioneer joked, “She’s not having one of her better days.”
Avedon was an influential American photographer who is perhaps best known for his pictures of celebrities, including The Beatles, Brooke Shields and, more recently, Charlize Theron. His work has appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Rolling Stone, Life and Look, among other publications.
Avedon died in 2004.
The 12 ¼ by 10 5/8 inch image is number seven of 25 in a series of signed and numbered gelatin silver prints. A print from the same series sold in 2011 at Christie’s in Paris for more than $80,000.
A previous owner of the print, rumoured to be the seller, is an anonymous man from the Lower Mainland who is said to have won it in a raffle after purchasing a $5 ticket in the early 80s.
As to why the piece didn’t sell, Bellringer didn’t have any answers.
“It just means the market wasn’t there.”
@EmmaHampelBIV
