Sturtevant Double Marilyn, 2004

American artist Sturtevant (1924–2014) is best known for her repetitions of the works of other artists, which she recreated manually from memory. Over the course of her career, she repeatedly returned to Andy Warhol’s portraits of Marilyn Monroe, making over thirty iterations of the motif in different formats and colour permutations, including Double Marilyn (2004). By extending Warhol’s process of serial repetition, Sturtevant’s approach found much in common with Warhol’s own practice and witty questioning of artistic originality in the age of mass production. Her aim was not to achieve an exact replica, but rather to address the notions of authorship, authenticity and originality in an era characterised by the endless circulation and recombination of images. When Warhol was asked how he made his work he famously replied: ‘I don’t know. Ask Elaine [Sturtevant].’