Warhol made this painting shortly after legendary actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe committed suicide in August 1962. It is one of his first photo-silkscreened canvases and one of his earliest celebrity paintings. He hand-painted the large canvas in gold and then silkscreened Monroe’s face, cropped from a publicity still for the film Niagara (1953), at the center. With this updated version of a Byzantine icon, Warhol canonized and eulogized Monroe as a goddess of popular culture.

Gold Marilyn Monroe was the star of Warhol’s first exhibition of paintings in New York, at the Stable Gallery in November 1962. The show sold out, and Warhol achieved status in the art world, something he had desired for a long time.