Madonna by Steven Klein for V Magazine [Winter 2021 issue]

Madonna is featured on the cover of V Magazine’s Winter 2021 issue. She is captured by Steven Klein in an homage to the glamor and tragedy of Marilyn Monroe inspired by Bert Stern’s “The Last Sitting,” the photoshoot Marilyn Monroe sat for just before her tragic death.

Steven Klein said…

This photo essay was inspired by a shoot that Marilyn Monroe did with photographer Bert Stern titled “The Last Sitting.” They shot at the Bel Air hotel in 1962, before she passed away. What was supposed to be a three-hour sitting, turned into a three-day whirlwind, working night and day. Drinking, laughing, shooting photos, editing, sleeping, and then taking more photos–a private affair between two artists which rarely happens anymore. We were not interested in recreating the images exactly but more importantly, we wanted to explore the relationship between photographer and subject. Both the friendship and the artistic process, and how art can imitate life and vice versa. When I sent Madonna the photos she was really taken by the incandescent fragility of Marilyn at that moment in her life. We decided to find a hotel suite and try to capture the liaison between a star and the camera, the mystery, and magic of this creative collaboration. We hope we have done justice to the great work of Bert Stern and Marilyn Monroe.