Vancouver Sun

Marilyn Monroe fashion shots up for sale

- ULA ILNYTZKY

NEW YORK — Fashion and celebrity photograph­er Milton H. Greene was only 26 years old when he photograph­ed Marilyn Monroe for Look magazine. He went on to take thousands of photos of the Hollywood siren, capturing both her vulnerabil­ity and her sex- bomb persona.

Now, 3,700 unpublishe­d black- and- white and colour negatives and transparen­cies of Greene’s Monroe archive are going on the auction block — with copyright. They are but a fraction of 75,000 celebrity negatives and slides Greene shot in the 1950s and 1960s that are going on sale July 27 at Profiles in History in Los Angeles and online.

Copyrights are included with all the material, which is spread over 268 lots, meaning a potential buyer can print images from the negatives and transparen­cies, sell them and license the material.

“It’s a big, big deal. It’s like selling the recipe for CocaCola,” said Joseph Maddalena, owner of Profiles in History, which auctions original Hollywood memorabili­a and artifacts.

“It’s nearly unheard of in a public venue, particular­ly for an entire archive,” said Christophe­r Belport, the photograph­y consultant for Profiles in History.

The archive also includes hundreds of production stills of Faye Dunaway during the filming of Bonnie & Clyde and Cary Grant and Doris Day in That Touch of Mink. Among others are Sid Caesar, Jane Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Catherine Deneuve, Ava Gardner and Marlene Dietrich.

Most of the lots are expected to fetch between $ 1,000 and $ 15,000 depending on the number of negatives in each lot and the featured celebrity. But it’s anyone’s guess what they will bring. “It’s unchartere­d territory,” Maddalena said.

Peter Stern, a lawyer specializi­ng in arts- related matters, raised concern that unsigned prints made from the negatives could hurt the market. “It’s not that hard to sign a photo,” he said.

But Maddalena noted: “There are no vintage Milton Greene photograph­s. ... He was a workforhir­e photograph­er” shooting covers for Look, Life, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and other magazines.

Like his contempora­ries, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, Greene is credited with elevating fashion photograph­y to fine art. But unlike them, Greene did not commercial­ize his work. “Only a handful ( were) published,” Maddalena said.

“The sudden opportunit­y to acquire a large number of camera artifacts from a historical­ly significan­t photograph­er will likely amplify the value ... and provide fuller context to those that are sold in the future in auction or privately,” Belport said.

The seller is an unidentifi­ed U. S. photograph­y collector who purchased the archive about 10 years ago.

The items came from the Greene estate “via a financial institute in Poland that had secured ownership from Greene in a business dealing” with the copyright, the auction house said.

The photograph­er’s son, Joshua Greene, called it “a bad business deal.”

He said that in the process of severing the partnershi­p, Milton Greene gave them the copyright, calling it “my mistake, which I regret to this day.”

Milton Greene’s 1953 assignment for Look was the start of a close friendship and business relationsh­ip with Monroe. He shot more than 5,000 images of her during more than 55 sittings over the next four years — until she married Arthur Miller.

Greene was her confidante and mentor.

Together they formed Marilyn Monroe Production­s, which resulted in her movies Bus Stop and The Prince and the Showgirl.

 ?? MILTON H. GREENE/ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES ?? Marilyn Monroe is shown in a 1955 portrait photo by Milton H. Greene, who is credited with elevating fashion photograph­y to fine art.
MILTON H. GREENE/ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Marilyn Monroe is shown in a 1955 portrait photo by Milton H. Greene, who is credited with elevating fashion photograph­y to fine art.

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