Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych contains 50 repeated images of Marilyn Monroe. The 1962 work uses a publicity photograph of Monroe from the 1953 film Niagara and places the repeated portraits in two facing panels.
The left panel presents the image in vivid color, while the right panel gradually fades into black-and-white tones. This contrast gives the work both the appearance of a glamorous celebrity display and a meditation on disappearance and mortality.
Warhol made the diptych shortly after Monroe died in August 1962. The repetition reflects the way celebrity images circulate through newspapers, magazines, publicity materials, and advertising, while the fading side suggests how repeated reproduction can drain an image of clarity.
The Marilyn Diptych is often confused with Warhol’s Shot Marilyns, which is a different group of paintings from the same period. Both use Monroe’s image, but the diptych is specifically the 50-image two-panel work.