In May, a portrait of a woman sold at auction in New York for $195m (£157m): a record for an artwork by an American artist and by any artist in the 20th century. That month, also in New York, there was a furore when a dress the woman had once worn was paraded at the Metropolitan Museum of Art gala by a reality TV star. The gown is said to be “the most expensive dress in the world”; its owner paid nearly $5m for it. To ensure its safety, it is normally kept in special conditions in a darkened vault.
The woman in the portrait, the woman who once wore the dress – to sing Happy Birthday to President John F Kennedy at Madison Square Garden – was, of course, Marilyn Monroe. The vividly coloured screen-print of her, the work of Andy Warhol, is the most famous of his works of pop art. Kim Kardashian, whose stunt it was to wear the Monroe dress at the Met, responded to criticism for having worn a deceased woman’s clothing by insisting, bizarrely, that she had “so much respect” for her.
