"The Last Sitting" by Bert Stern, First Edition, Marilyn Monroe's Final Photo Shoot for Vogue Magazine

The Last Sitting is a coffee table book from the last photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe by famous photographer Bert Stern. The shoot was commissioned by Vogue magazine in late June 1962, taking place over three daily sessions, just six weeks before she died.

Bert Stern looks back on that momentous sitting, offering a revealing, naked portrait of Marilyn. From the glamorous, sophisticated photos, in which Vogue would publish as a black-and-white memorial spread, to the less restrained color shots that Stern coaxed out of Marilyn during an intense, exhausting session, this collection covers nearly every aspect of modern photography: portraiture, fashion-driven, erotic, and artistic. More than a comprehensive display of Stern's immeasurable talents, these photographs combine to create an homage to the legendary Marilyn Monroe.

The Last Sitting by Bert Stern.
Copyright © 1982 by Bert Stern
William Morrow & Company, Inc., NY
Printed and Bound in Italy by Mondadori
First Edition
Hardcover
ISBN 0-688-01173-X
Measures 10.25” x 12.75”

Condition:
Good vintage condition. Dust jacket has some shelf & edge wear, sun tanning and a few small tears. The top edge of the DJ curls a little. The rest of the book is in great condition: binding tight, pages bold and bright and unmarked.

From the inside flap:
"The innocence and the fire that was Marilyn Monroe are captured forever in the most ravishing photographs ever taken of the legendary star.
Bert Stern, famed photographer of beautiful women, had a dream. It was to create a great portrait of Marilyn Monroe, to catch on film her unique quality in one immortal photograph. Through a Vogue assignment, Stern arranged a meeting with Marilyn, who agreed to sit for him. It was to be the last sitting she ever gave. Six weeks later Marilyn Monroe was dead.
The photographs in The Last Sitting include some of the most famous of the star, as well as never-before-published photos from Stern's private collection.
Marilyn Monroe posed nude for Stern, the only time she had done so since the famous calendar shots taken when she was eighteen. Here you will read Bert Stern's account of what happened then—how the sitting ignited into an extraordinary romance in which a man and woman made love through the camera's lens. "She was the light and the goddess and the moon—the mystery and the danger." The incandescent photographs record it all: Here is Marilyn, clothed and unclothed, joyful, playful, wistful, deliciously wanton—a love goddess.
Stern has been called "the most exciting and controversial photographer of the last quar ter century." This collector's book, published on the twentieth anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death, is Stern's unforgettable tribute to a legend of her time and beyond."

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