Shot Sage Blue Marilyn

American artist Andy Warhol created this Shot Sage Blue Marilyn in 1964, using a publicity photograph from Marilyn Monroe's 1953 film Niagara as his source image. This 40-inch square silkscreen on canvas features Monroe's face against a sage blue background, her lips bright red and eyeshadow vivid blue. Warhol applied a more refined technique to this limited series than his typical mass-production approach.

The "Shot" in the title references a notorious incident at Warhol's Factory studio. In 1964, acquaintance Dorothy Podber pulled out a revolver and shot four of the five Marilyn silkscreens in the series. Each featured a different colored background: red, orange, light blue, sage blue, and turquoise. The bullet holes were later repaired, but the dramatic story became inseparable from the works' identity.

Warhol's Marilyn images explore how mass media transforms real people into consumable products, as reproducible as Campbell's Soup cans. The repetition drains individual identity while simultaneously immortalizing the subject. Created two years after Monroe's death, the series addresses celebrity, mortality, and American culture's obsession with fame. In May 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn sold at Christie's for $195 million, becoming the most expensive 20th-century artwork ever auctioned.