BERT STERN

Bert Stern was born in New York in 1929 to a family of Jewish migrants from Russia. He was fascinated by photography from childhood, finding inspiration in the works of his father, who was also a photographer. Stern started his career as a simple office assistant at Look magazine, where he met Stanley Kubrick, who worked as a photographer at that time. Kubrick invited Stern to be the photographer for his film ‘Lolita’ and thereby initiated Bert’s artistic journey. By 1949, Stern had already become the art editor of Mayfair magazine, where he combined editorial and photographic work. In the late 1950s, he was seriously interested in film-making and shot his own documentary, ‘Jazz on a Summer’s Day.’ The film was a great success. It was later recognized by the Library of Congress as a cultural asset and included in its National Film Registry. In the 1960s, he was actively involved with photo shoots for many successful movie stars like Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood, Elizabeth Taylor, and Louis Armstrong, just to name a few. In 1962, Stern was assigned by Vogue to do a photo session with Marilyn Monroe, in which he took about 2,500 images. In 1999, he published 36 photos from that series in a separate book titled ‘Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting.’ Later, Bert Stern moved to Spain, where he compiled a book of his favorite photos, which sold 18 million copies.