KEYES

BERT STERN

As one of America's most influential and celebrated photographers, Bert Stern was known for his iconic portraits of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Marilyn Monroe, Kate Moss, Brigitte Bardot, Marlon Brando and Ray Charles and many others. Among his most famous works is a series known as The Last Sitting, which includes 2,500 photographs of Marilyn Monroe taken in June 1962, only six weeks before the star's death.

The Brooklyn native also shot the still photos of actress Sue Lyon for the movie Lolita in 1962, which led to one of the memorable posters in film history. . After being asked to take the photos at the request of Lolita director Stanley Kubrick, Bert said he was inspired by the words of Vladimir Nabokov, the author whose novel inspired the movie, and underlined passages in the book that “would make picture ideas.”
Also known as one of the original “madmen,” Bert helped reinvent advertising photography with his groundbreaking work, using dynamic, startling images. For example, his classic ad for Smirnoff vodka in 1955 was shot with the Great Pyramid at Giza looming in the background behind a martini glass---but it appears upside down inside the glass.

During his 50-year-career, he created countless award-winning ads, editorial features, magazine covers, films, and portraits.
His 1959 documentary about the Newport Jazz Festival, Jazz on a Summer's Day, was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry

Born in 1929, Bert dropped out of high school at the age of 16, and got a job in the mail room at Look magazine. A self-taught photographer, he worked his way up to become an assistant at Look and later became the art director at Mayfair Magazine. He became one of the most sought-after fashion, advertising and art photographers.
His work was widely exhibited, and notable featured showings include “I Wanna Be Loved by You: Photographs of Marilyn Monroe” at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and “The Last Sitting” at Musee Maillol in Paris. He died at the age of 83 on June 26, 2013.