The first I had heard of Bert Stern was through the iconic "The Last Sitting", a collection of photographs of Marilyn Monroe in the lead up to her untimely death. My mum, a big fan of Marilyn has the book displayed with her other Marilyn books on our cabinet, and I distinctly remember feeling very drawn to these images. Marilyn, who was viewed as a vivacious and beautiful women, was now shown to be self-conscious and unhappy with her image. The red marks drawn all over the images -which were unusable at the time and undoubtedly Bert Stern was incredibly cross with this act - represented how Marilyn and all women under the eye of the media feel a pressure to be perfect.
