A crowd gathers in Palm Springs, Calif., in May 2012 to take a look at Seward Johnson’s “Forever Marilyn” during a welcome party for the sculpture. The 26-foot-tall stainless steel and aluminum likeness of Marilyn Monroe will be in Hamilton in May. (Photo by Gregg Felsen.)
Seward Johnson’s “Forever Marilyn” rests in pieces on a truck en route to Palm Springs, Calif. The sculpture of Marilyn Monroe in her iconic pose from the film “Seven Year Itch” will be in Hamilton in May. (Photo by Gregg Felsen.)
“Forever Marilyn” fans say goodbye to their beloved sculpture at a party in Palm Springs, Calif., March 27, 2014.
A crowd gathers at a Farewell Party for “Forever Marilyn” in Palm Springs, Calif., March 27, 2014.“Forever Marilyn” leaves Palm Springs for Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton For the last two years, Marilyn Monroe found an oasis in the desert of Southern California. At the corner of Tahquitz Canyon Way and Palm Canyon Drive in downtown Palm Springs, she never wanted for visitors. At all hours of the day, people came to mug for photographs with her, snuggling with her leg or maybe even taking a daring, curious glance up her skirt. She didn’t seem to mind. She always smiled. Though at 26-feet tall she was literally larger than life already, Marilyn became a phenomenon in Palm Springs. Any trip to the resort town 100 miles east of Los Angeles wasn’t complete without a stop to see Marilyn. Tourists from around the world came to visit. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an icon in his own right, had to have his picture snapped with her. The City of Palm Springs—in conjunction with PS Resorts, a consortium of local hotels that markets the city and plans special events—knew it had a star. It included Marilyn as a major piece of its tourism campaigns. PS Resorts centered many of its events around her—concerts and movie series related to Marilyn Monroe’s career. Hundreds turned out. On March 27, PS Resorts planned on throwing one last shindig for her: a farewell party. Marilyn, in pieces, will board a flatbed truck April 2 and leave the community that has embraced her. “It is going to be a very sad day,” said Aftab Dada, general manager of the Hilton Palm Springs and chairman of PS Resorts. “It’s like losing a part of the family.” She will cross the country, a 2,600-mile road trip to Hamilton, her birthplace. There, she will serve as a star attraction in a summer retrospective at Grounds For Sculpture honoring her creator, artist Seward Johnson. More than 150 of Johnson’s sculptures—including the piece formally known as “Forever Marilyn”—will be on display starting May 4. A stainless steel-and-aluminum sculpture of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt billowing, “Forever Marilyn” hadn’t always been so loved. In Chicago—the sculpture’s inaugural home—noted Chicago Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper took issue with “Forever Marilyn” from the start, asking in a July 2011 column, “Did we lose a bet?” That same year, travel website Virtualtourist.com dubbed “Forever Marilyn” the worst piece of public art in the world. Vandals struck at least three times, including once splashing red paint the sculpture’s legs, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune. The sculpture’s 10-month stint in Chicago may not have been a lovefest, but it did garner plenty of publicity. The Sculpture Foundation, which controls the rights for “Forever Marilyn,” received inquiries from places like Singapore, Shanghai, London, Brazil, Miami and Rome. Another of those places was Palm Springs, a town that has some history with Monroe. It was a meeting at the Palm Springs Racquet Club in 1947 that launched Monroe’s career. Serious about securing “Forever Marilyn,” Palm Springs councilman Paul Lewin and PS Resorts coordinated with the Sculpture Foundation. PS Resorts gathered $25,000 in seed money, plus held a wider fundraising effort. It found a special place for the sculpture, at a corner in downtown Palm Springs, with mountains as a backdrop. The City of Palm Springs turned the area into a small park that could be a community gathering area. “Forever Marilyn” also filled a practical purpose, masking the growing pains of urban redevelopment; Marilyn stood on a demolition site destined to become a downtown resort and shopping area. Those involved with tourism in Palm Springs planned on using the sculpture to draw tourists and locals alike to downtown Palm Springs during the construction. They knew “Forever Marilyn” would receive attention, but they never expected how much of a hit it would become. “She came here for a purpose,” Palm Springs tourism director Mary Jo Ginther said. “For us, it was great. It defied everybody’s expectations. It was a stroke of brilliance.” “Forever Marilyn” became a point of civic pride. Schoolchildren made banners and posters with Monroe’s image for a local parade. The Palm Springs Fire Department would head out to give Marilyn a bath from time to time. For the most part, those in Palm Springs treated the sculpture with respect. They looked at “Forever Marilyn” as a living member of their community, not an inanimate object. The worst indignities “Forever Marilyn” had to suffer was the pair of times a local knitting club made giant stockings and placed them on the sculpture. “Yarn bombing” they called it. “We’re going to miss her,” Ginther said. “She came into our collective lives at a perfect time. Nobody seems to think of her as a sculpture. Everyone talks about her as a ‘her,’ as ‘Marilyn.’” PS Resorts managed to extend the stay of “Forever Marilyn” several times; it was to be in Palm Springs only until June 2013 originally. Palm Springs managed to hang on to the sculpture until April 2014, but its departure could be delayed no longer. Preparations for construction at the corner of Tahquitz Canyon Way and Palm Canyon Drive have started, and the developer is ready to take over the corner. On a Facebook page devoted to the sculpture, some in Palm Springs threatened to chain themselves to Marilyn’s leg. Others suggested the city attempt to buy “Forever Marilyn” or commission another one. The goal is to bring “Forever Marilyn” back eventually, Dada said. The construction downtown should take two or three years, and the developer has already agreed to devote some space to the sculpture should someone succeed in securing it for Palm Springs once construction ends. But, in the meantime, there isn’t an ideal place for “Forever Marilyn” in Palm Springs. “People have been calling and writing us to say, ‘How stupid are they in Palm Springs to let her go?’” Dada said. “That’s not our choice.” So, “Forever Marilyn” will head to Hamilton, and spend nearly five months there as part of Grounds For Sculpture’s “Seward Johnson: The Retrospective” exhibition. What happens to the sculpture after the exhibit ends Sept. 21 has not been announced. The exhibition includes pieces like “God Bless America”—a monumental-sized take on the farmer couple in Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”—and “Unconditional Surrender,” a sculpture of a World War II-era sailor kissing a nurse. Those sculptures, like “Forever Marilyn,” are part of Johnson’s “Icons Revisited” series. In the series, Johnson set out to explore why certain images become iconic. But Grounds For Sculpture knows what it has in “Forever Marilyn.” The retrospective will open with a champagne toast to Marilyn, a nod to the sculpture that may be the most discussed piece in the collection. “This is an image everybody is familiar with,” said Paula Stoeke, director of the Sculpture Foundation. “When you build in this scale that Seward Johnson did, you’re inviting dialogue. Really good public art is an opportunity for a dialogue in a community.” Whatever the reasons, Palm Springs seized that opportunity, developing deep connections to “Forever Marilyn” in the process. Those ties have ensured at least one community will be watching the travels of “Forever Marilyn” with keen interest. It hammers home a point one discovers quickly when speaking to people in Palm Springs. Hamilton may be receiving a sculpture, but to the City of Palm Springs, the New Jersey township is gaining so much more—a family member. “The City of Palm Springs sends Marilyn to Hamilton with love,” said Lewin, the Palm Springs councilman. “Take good care of her.”
