1 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2014

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SUMMER 2014 • $5.00 US

www.fineartmagazine.net

HOW A FEARLESS WOMAN WITH VISION,TASTE & HEART BUILT AN EMPIRE

STORY - PAGE 7

2 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2014

There are few who have done as much to make great art accessible to the public in

so many ways than Marilyn Goldberg Marilyn Goldberg, President of Museum Masters International,

is a reservoir of artistic ideas and ideals and by studying her achievements spanning nearly four decades, one will gain great insight into the most creative movements in Art and Design of our times. The result of her insightful understanding of what is intrinsically good and beautiful, coupled with her business acumen and genuine enthusiasm, is a model of grace seasoned with grit, the sum of which is a powerful drive to make the artists she represents not only commercially successful, but formidable icons in the playing fields of modern culture.

In a career in of which she has curated exhibitions and developed product for Picasso, Erté, Dali, Haring, van Gogh, Tamara de Lempicka, Warhol, John Lennon, Muramasa Kudo, Giancarlo Impiglia, Peter Max, Ed Heck and many others, she single-handedly revolutionized the concept of museum gift shops and the merchandising of art while helping artists (and their heirs)secure the rights to their work and protect their Trademark.

With her bright smile and attitude filled with beach sunshine and ocean waves, she has not dimmed a bit over the years. She continues to relish all challenges and works tirelessly seven days a week on each of her projects. Such as the days I watched her take Lennon’s doodles on napkins and tissues to the efforts of using her printing atelier background of fine lithography creating handmade papers, old limestone plates hand carved to adapt fine art prints which she called “Chine-colle.” Adapting Picasso original paintings to estate co-branded prints, exquisite silk fabric scarves recognized on the cover of Italian Vogue,(treasured today by Art

MARILYN GOLDBERGThe Queen Of Art & Her Court

BY VICTOR BENNET FORBES

Marilyn Monroe© Sidney Randolph Maurer

Licensed by MMIwww.marilynmonroe.com

MarilynI, Marilyn II World Tour Exhibition

Sid Maurer’s Bob Marley portrait was a centerpiece of the“Songs of Freedom” exhibition of pho-tographs and other Marley memorabilia. Held at Marilyn Goldberg’s Galerie Mari Hube townhouse in NYC to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the reggae superstar’s death. The Gallery served Jamaican food with staff dressed in Rastafarian colors of red, gold and green and was covered in the NY Times. “I loved dancing to his music,” said Marilyn. “It was better than my old days at Studio 54 with Dali and Warhol!”

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At home with Picasso

Partying with Warhol

The appreciation of the art that has resulted from her inspired, ground-breaking products not only has brought beauty and joy to many but has seen the value of her using the Art Trademarks she also develops, and files increase collectibles many times over.

From Picasso to Lennon, to the Catherine the Great Exhibition at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, to de Lempicka in Rome, Milan, Paris, Japan, Mexico and Korea, Marilyn designed Brand Trademarked Certificates of authenticity that are issued with the signed and numbered editions used by the Estates for their Museum banners and books to this day.

Marilyn Goldberg began

Galleries framing these as the limited edition silks, elegant tiffany quality tableware; creating the mark for Erté sculptures (through her contacts and the opening she arranged at the French embassy with Monsieur George Henri It’s director) where she unveiled personally the first “Victoire” as a three-dimensional sculpture. Not to mention the many other collections and celebrity campaigns from Marilyn Monroe to Andy Warhol into Monroe exhibitions and sponsors like Pepsi with artworks and accessories which adorned homes mundane and palatial around the world. With her Hamptons investor groups, she architects and designs estates which are known as the “Villas Del Arte” (The Houses of Art)

THE NEW HEADQUARTERS OF MUSEUM MASTERS INTERNATIONAL, a stunning estate in New York’s world famous enclave of the rich and famous — The Hamptons — was funded by the Art Merchan-dising investor group, and Japanese partners. “Villa Marilyn” opened in 2012 under the auspices of architect/designer Marilyn Goldberg who created a total environment from gardens planted with

Monet Water Lily Ponds with Water lilys from Giverney — to plates and mugs that coordinate with Monet’s works. There is a unique “Cat Chateau” inspired by Andy Warhol’s cat drawings and the

“Marilyn Monroe Theater” replete with a wide variety of “Marilyn” paintings and products devel-oped for the many exhibitions celebrating the 80th anniversary of MM’s birth. Each room of the

complex expresses “The Art of Living” — an artistic lifestyle enhanced by the creations only Muse-um Masters could develop. Featured are new and classic MMI products from Picasso and Keith Har-ing beach towels in the poolhouse to Warhol and Picasso dinnerware in the dining room to Tamara de Lempicka vases and candlestick holders in the salon to Picasso Prints in the living room. There are Haring Mouse pads in the office for computer work and Erté and Picasso umbrellas line the

entry foyer with Degas sun hats in the sunroom. Villa Marilyn will be licensed next for similar com-plex’s in vacation resorts around the world.

At home with Picasso art & Erté telephone

A Visionary Marketer Strikes Gold

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profitability in their retail stores creating great revenue streams for these cash strapped organizations.

To get everything moving, Marilyn invested all she had and ventured to Japan to design and manufacture the initial set of products herself. There she found a way to manifest her vision of class and elegance where the importance of packaging was understood. Exquisite trademark signature boxes were created and produced to be used by all of Ms. Goldberg’s manufacturers in Europe and the Orient featuring colorful tissue and ribbons for wrapping the gifts with repeats of the artist’s trademark signature. The Estate has lost original films thru battles with its predecessor SPADEM run at the time with Martine Doverne its Director. In order to prepare high resolution for new product, Museum Masters worked for months using the original Cray-Pas. These were the oil pastels used by Pablo Picasso and the famous art firm of Henri Sennelier. Only by collecting these Cray-Pas were the exact and correct colors established and authenticated for the merchandising program. She single handedly created new future treasures and collectibles as the original of each painting or drawing she used on product that the world had never seen soared in value because they were “recognized images” by the new Asian Collector market.

Then there was a three week all expense paid visit by the Chi-nese Government for Marilyn Goldberg to lecture on International Business Trade, Copyright Registrations and Trademark Applica-tions in order to protect the artwork owned by the artist and pre-venting from being stolen as it was from Picasso and Sid Maurer but then retrieved by order of the courts.

Years prior in Japan (which produced all as China does to-day), Ms. Goldberg was invited by Mitsukoshi Museum and Hakone Museum for the same purpose. She was greeted in the

her ascent to lofty terrain as the world’s foremost art marketer at a townhouse in New York City’s posh East Side. Her Museum Masters International townhouse, which she architected and designed, was located at 26 East 64th Street as her headquarters. Her first exhibition at there was for Bob Marley with over 1,000 visitors waiting on line to see the international photography, artwork, and groove to the music of the late Jamaican Rastafarian superstar with Marley family members in attendance. The event was further celebrated with Jamaican foods and attire, described int he press as an international New York sensation. The second major art show was Peter Max at her Southampton NY Garett Stephens Gallery named after her son Garett.

Later, after designing the programs for Warhol and Keith Haring, she sold her company to ProSeibenSat1, a Munich-based public company in Germany where she formed Art Merchandising and Media AG serving as a Vorstand (senior hierarchically subordinate member of the management board of the ProSeibanSat1 operations). In addition, Ms. Goldberg directed Art Merchandising and Media NY as well as Museum Masters International which continued it’s representation of Picasso and Tamara de Lempicka marketing through 2004 when staff and sub-agents worldwide were trained to run operations. As always, once she departed, the Estates no longer chose to do business with the new ownership and they continued to ask that she curate and put the exhibitions together. With a group of US investors she financed her entire first production of her Picasso Program and convinced them that Art Merchandising was the way of the future. At that time, in the United States, a licensee would not consider a license of an artist nor were there any protective Artist Trademarks. Big companies in the USA invested in Mickey Mouse, Howdy Doody and Donald Duck…they were not from the sophisticated arena of Marilyn’s European family and did not at that time understand the value of these brands. After meetings held at the Negresco Hotel in Cannes France with the entire Picasso Estate and their individual heirs and attorneys, the approval system was conducted by US attorney Martin Bressler of VAGA. None contributed any financing to the project which Marilyn Goldberg developed solely in Japan for years with her Japanese partners Masao Kurimoto and Michiko Kobiayaskhi.

Her product designs presented at the Negresco meetings were approved to be sold internationally. The heirs never imagined at the time that the Marina Picasso Collection and Picasso Collection would become overnight sensations and that these collections would launch the birth of a most important andvibrant industry — one that could be used for development of all products: fine jewelry, watches, bed and bath, furniture and upholstery, porcelains and glassware not to mention fashion items, mobile phone covers, fragrance and cosmetics — even masterpiece baby wear and the most elegant baby embodied bedding. Museums were now able to have on site and show

Pablo Picasso top quality cigars & humidors. One of the manyPicasso products developed by MMI (later followed byAdministration Picasso Trademark Cars for Citroen)

Invitation by Mayor of Shanghai for Marilyn Goldberg Lectures onInternational Exhibitions and Merchandising business 2004

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highest of hospitality with formal Japanese Tea Ceremonies. She set up assorted International Art Exhibitions and produced the products she designed in her own hand with special border designs derived from the original artists’ work. New copyrights were filed to protect the new designs. With blond and hair green eyes, she was the sole female Caucasian “in business” when it was unheard of for such a young woman to be traveling the country with Japanese heads of companies.

She lived in Tokyo and Nagoya and worked at the factories where her various ideas came to life. Her partners were Masao Kurimoto, and Michicko Horibe who helped her fund the publication of the first book in Japanese of the Marina Picasso Collection. Ms. Goldberg turned simple drawings into collectible masterpieces she designed. She manufactured the first Picasso porcelain on the island of Arita, and the first Picasso scarves at the Sisan Factory in Como, Italy where the story was picked up by Italian Vogue. Within two years and despite major resistance, her ideas and concepts sold in the most prestigious world museums from Mitsukoshi to the Hakone Open Air Museum in Japan to the Guggenheim in New York, the Picasso Museum in Paris and Barcelona and the Louvre Museum in Paris. This victories secured Marilyn Goldberg as a legendary pioneer of art merchandising who created new brands that she alone believed in for the world. Ms. Goldberg was then inducted into the Artexpo Hall of Fame by her peers, treated as an artist in her own right along with Erté, Dali, Warhol and many other famous artists. Artexpo co-founder Jerry Leberfeld to this day calls on her for marketing advice stating, “Her distinctive display booths and unrivaled energy and enthusiasm for success still amazes me and was a major factor in the success of our shows.”

Her designs and penchant for turning well-known works of art into everything from ashtrays to Tiffany tableware have gener-ated billions of dollars in sales and have brought the works of the greats of all-time, previously only available as originals or posters, into the homes of millions around the world.

That was certifiably the beginning of art merchandising as we know it today. She single-handedly pioneered and revolutionized the concept of museum gift stores starting with the Guggenheim in New York City, which initially was quite reticent to change the drab shop into an attractive boutique. “I sold them their first prod-ucts after I left a basket of samples,” recalls Marilyn from her spec-tacular waterfront headquarters in the Hamptons. “I introduced artist-related products that ran the gamut from Picasso scarves — first advertised in VOGUE — to Tiffany quality dinnerware, vases, candlestick holders, fragrances, crystal and tapestries. It all began with limited edition estate-endorsed lithographs signed by Picasso’s granddaughter Marina Picasso. The editions were so successful they spawned an entire industry. This was soon followed by very specially made Chine Colle graphics, developed from tissue and napkin doo-dles via Marilyn’s vision and signed and endorsed by Yoko Ono with a chop mark and embossed seal similar to that which she made for Picasso and more recently for Tamara de Lempicka.

MMI Keith Haring Children’s clock 1999(c) The Keith Haring Foundation 2000

www.haring.com

She also filed the first art trademarks in history to protect the merchandise that she pi-oneered world-wide “so that artists and their estates could secure the rights to their work.”

“I drew the marks in my own hand be-cause the signatures on each painting were different. van Gogh only signed Vincent and I added the rest. I won a Picasso trademark case in court when I drew the trademark I creat-ed in front of the judge. So I know what it is like to have your trademark stolen. At least I had fifteen years to make money from those I created, but artists like Sid and Robert Indi-ana (LOVE) earned nothing from their iconic images.”

Editions created by Ms. Goldberg were very successful and each limited edition product of her artists, while soaring in value also spawned an entire industry of co-branded lithographs along with ever-appreciating

value of limited edition dinnerware, silk scarves and a myriad of other products. Paper shopping bags in her “limited editions” that then cost $1.25 trade at $500 today. The prints she started at $150 escalated to $5,000-10,000 dollars. She has done

this over and over with each celebrity artist and photographer she represents.

Sid Maurer is next on the agenda for 2015.

Museum Masters International logo seals created by Marilyn Goldberg

Over the years she introduced a myriad of products in collaboration with exhibitions of van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Klimpt, Erté, Dali, Warhol, Haring and de Lempicka, all creating great

revenue streams for cash-strapped museums

6 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2014

20th Anniversary Tamara de Lempicka, Victoria de Lempicka, Marilyn Goldberg

Vittoriano Museum “The new pride of Rome Italy where Ms. Goldberg organized and opened her exhibitions starting with Victoria de Lempicka with the president of Italy, the granddaughter and great granddaughter of Tamara De

Lempicka in collaboration with Italian curator Gioia Mori and long time gallery handler Alain Blondel. Once again the gift store thrived and Lempicka products were bought by the thousands who visited. The busses, airports and street corners all

celebrated with banners showing the Lempicka paintings.

Tamara de LempickaFrom Guilty Pleasure To

Auction Trea$ure

It is no coincidence that since Museum Masters International began promoting Tamara de Lempicka 25 years ago this artist has escalat-

ed in price from $200,000 dollars a painting to over $9 million at auc-tion. Considered “an upper-class dilettante … arrogant and de-praved,’’ (as Laura Claridge writes in Tamara de Lempicka: A Life of Deco and Decadence’) Ms. Goldberg took de Lempic-ka from semi-obscurity into the mainstream with major museum exhibitions paving the way for what will certainly be a provoca-tive Hollywood motion picture in short order. The first exhibits for de Lempicka were financed by Braintrust in Japan. William Webber, President of Modern Master Tapestries and long-time MMI exhibition manager, in searching for the best museums in the world for a de Lempicka show, discovered the newly renovated Vittoriano in Rome, Italy. Unfortunately, he slipped on the steps there and was instantly killed. This was one of the great sadnesses in Marilyn’s life. The Vittoriano then became the location which she felt spiritually that William Webber had selected for the new exhibitions.

The next Tamara de Lempicka exhibition is set for Korea in 2015 with Victoria Colonna of Colonnavittoria, in Los An-geles, in line to make the film of de Lempicka’s life in conjunc-tion with Darren Goldberg of Atlantic Pictures.

At Sotheby’s in 2011, Tamara de Lempicka’s

painting ‘‘Le Rêve/Rafaëla sur fond vert,’’ done in hyper-realist style in 1927, sold for

$8.48 million

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www.fineartmagazine.net

8 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2014

Somewhere between Their Satanic Majesties Request album and the recording of Sympathy For The Devil, Brian Jones, went to the dark side.

Unceremoniously canned from the band he started, Jones, arguably the heart and soul of the Rolling Stones, was found (still-breathing some say) at the bottom of his swimming pool at En-glish countryside home, Cotchford Farm. In one of those yet-to-be-solved leg-endary rock and roll deaths, the mystery remains. Yet the facts of his life are indisput-able. “He formed the band. He chose the members. He named the band. He chose the music we played. He got us gigs…he was very influen-tial, very important, and then slowly lost it,” said Stones bassist Bill Wyman. None other than Bo Diddley called him “a fantastic cat who han-dled the group beautifully.”

Enter Sid Maurer, a ma-jor league New York City art director/artist who helmed an agency that produced al-bum covers at the rate of one a day for a few years in the psychedelic era. It was during this period that Maurer’s work gained major recogni-tion with best-selling records and sales of his paintings in galleries from Manhattan to London to where he regu-larly commuted to visit his best friend, the legendary troubadour/teen idol/rock star who still goes by the sin-gle name of Donovan. They met on his maiden voyage to America when “Don” was freaking out over the exces-sive enthusiasm of secretar-ies-turned-groupies and the business persona of label president Clive Davis at the Columbia/Epic offices. At the time, Sid was under con-tract with Epic to produce all their album art and was called in by Davis to meet his newest star. Barefoot and

El Sid “ThE Kid” RidES AgAin

in what Sid could only describe as a Turkish wedding gown, the Sunshine Superman took Sid up on his offer to take a short walk

back to his studio, locat-ed around the corner. “We hung out, smoked a couple of joints, talked about all kinds of nice stuff and he invited me to his sold-out Carnegie Hall show and that’s how our friendship started.” Donovan, belated- ly elected in 2013 to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, readily states, “Sid-ney did all my album jack-ets and design in the ’60s He’s the best there is. His artworks are to be treasured and we are friends to this day.”

In those halcyon times, “Don would phone me from England,” recalled the artist in recent interview from his Atlanta studio “and say, ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ and I would hop on a plane and we’d have a visit. He had a beautiful cottage in Hartforsdhire with a very colorful large bird painted on the roof. In those days, we’d sim-ply hang out, which one could do back then.” Visi-tors might include George Harrison or one of the oth-er Beatles as Donovan had just returned from a trip to India to visit the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi with the band to study with the founder of Transcendental Meditation, etc. It was there that Don-ovan taught John and Paul his unique guitar style of which Lennon’s Julia is the most famous example.

During one of many parties Sid attended in London, he met Andrew Loog Oldham, manag-er of the Rolling Stones, who went on to dedicate a chapter to Sid in his book 2Stoned. Sid recalls one gala with Princess Marga-ret and Sean Connery in

Sid Maurer with portrait of Brian Jones and Linda from a photo he took of them in 1967. Below, left, is Sid’s graphic rendition on a baby picture (inset above is Sid’s from 1927) showing details of what would become the famous tongue logo. Below center is the painting by Sid bought by Jones in 1968 which eventually morphed into the logo ultimately executed by a British design student John Pasche after a meeting with Mick Jagger.

(l) Sid’s original concept; Brian Jones bought Sid’s painting (c) for $1500. (r) John Pasche’s version sold at auction for $92,500 to Victoria Albert Museum. Another artist, Ruby Mazur also claims he did work on the logo and was paid $10,000 for its use. According to Novagraaf/Musidor.com “The Rolling Stones are one of the longest running acts in the history of rock music, having remained wildly popular and prodigiously productive over their 50-year career. They are also well known for the lips and tongue logo, one of the world’s most instantly recognizable symbols of rock and roll. (Ed. note: with a value of $100 million USD). The global music rights of the Rolling Stones are being handled by Musidor BV in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in Partnership with Novagraaf and hold Intellectual Property rights of the trademark The Rolling Stones, including the iconic logo.

Marilyn Goldberg’s newest Exhibition and Museum Merchandising project will be in collaboration with Sid Maurer, and his company Celebrity Icons. A 50-year archive has arrived in Southampton to be curated for this retrospective.

®

9 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2014

Sidney Maurer album design for Donovan’s Barabajagal

attendance where Oldham and Sid bonded over a warning to not touch the punch. “ ‘It’s loaded with LSD,’ he told me. That’s how it was back then. You had to be careful. Our ’60s conversations were mostly, ‘Take a hit. Far out. Have another hit. Too much. What’s your sign?’”

Through Oldham, Sid met the doomed Brian Jones who commissioned him to paint a portrait of himself with his girlfriend Linda Lawrence, mother of his son Julian. Sid recalls, “Brian loved collecting. He had tidbits here and there, and many photographs. He loved my baby picture from 1927! Unfortunately, the photo was old and not in great shape so I found an alternate (not of me) and embellished it with a little graphic concept with a tongue and lips penciled in, basically to reflect the Stones as they were: the bad boys of the era sticking their tongues out at authority, as op-posed to the Beatles, who were considered more safe. He liked that image a lot and asked me to make a color drawing, which, unknown to me at the time, morphed somehow into the famous Rolling Stones tongue logo, which originated from my baby picture, of all things. I first offered the drawing to their record label, Decca, who were willing to give me a few hundred dollars for it but Bri-an liked it enough to pay me 500 British Sterling pounds, which was about $1500 back then. I thought nothing of it until years later. In 2013 I was commissioned to make shirts and other items in France featuring my original tongue painting. Sortly after they were placed on display in a Paris department store, they were seized by Musidor and taken off the shelves for ‘trademark infringement.’ Without Brian around to tell the real story, the manufacturer had no choice but to comply.”

The next thing Sid created for Brian was a portrait of the Stone and Linda. The photo Sid is holding (preceding page) became the basis for the initial small painting. “This shows how beautiful a guy he was,” said the artist. “I painted that picture somewhere along the line and tucked it away. After Brian died, Linda married my best friend, Donovan, and they became a family.”

In 2013, by Linda’s request to honor the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones, Sid was commissioned to re-create the portrait on canvas from his initial painting done all those years ago. The final painting is exactly the same but on canvas. The new version now resides in Ireland with Linda.

“I traveled all over with Donovan, and even accompanied he and Linda on their honeymoon. After one of his concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, Tommy Smothers threw a party for him. Hen-drix, Janis, Morrison, Mama Cass, and a new kid on the block who didn’t even have a record out — Elton John — were all there. Many of the people I met became casualties, but Don did not. He was always very careful where he hung out and didn’t do drugs. After he made some money, he asked me to invest it for him so I put it in a bank in the Bahamas that I found out was ready to go under a year later. Somehow, I managed to salvage the dough and we bought a boat and took it to Greece with a crew of 12 and three hippies — me, Don and a friend. We landed at the Island of Hydras, to visit Leonard Cohen, who had a house up on a hill, accessible only by donkey.”

A long way from The Bronx, where Sid was born and raised when “the streets were black from horseshit, not asphalt. I was

going to attend Taft (high school) but somewhere along the line a typographer friend of my family saw some of my work and suggest-ed that I would be more suited to attend The School of Industrial Art on Jones Street in the Village. There were two teachers there, one for art, the other for academics and it was great, kind of like be-ing an apprentice in the Renaissance. In the morning, we’d find our teacher on the stoop recovering from the night before and the first who arrived was designated to get him coffee. One of my classmates was Anthony Benedetto, better known as Tony Bennett, singer and artist. Anthony Benedetto is the name the signs his paintings with. I wrote the class theme song and conducted our band. After gradu-ation, I worked for Columbia Records in the art department. Their office was then in Bridgeport, Connecticut and I made the com-mute every day via the elevated Jerome Ave. line, bus crosstown to Grand Central and then a train ride. I was drafted, injured and sent taken home. After the war and I was OK, I started knocking on doors of record companies and was hired by Decca.”

During the late ’50s and early ’60s, Sid frequented the fabled Cedar Tavern where he met artists such as Rauschenberg, Johns, and Larry Rivers in their salad days and witnessed the zaniness of that particular scene. “Every night they would knock each other to the floor, fueled by alcohol. This was just before grass became mainstream in the mid ’60s and in those days I would run into Dylan, Joni Mitchell and many others in small clubs in Greenwich Village. That’s where I became especially close to music. My whole life as an artist has been fueled by my love of music.”

Sid’s career in the art and music field flourished in New York City where among his friends were Alan Klein (the businessman who helped form Apple Records for the Beatles and managed the Rolling Stones) and Bob Guccione. “He came to my exhibit at the Beilin Gallery on Madison Avenue, liked my stuff and asked me to show him a few things. I also met him in London. He was a slick guy, loved the girls and very handsome. I painted his portrait and helped him style the girls for photo shoots. He had his own pent-house, the girls were there and that was his life. We hung out,” Sid continued, “and I began to write chapters — not a book — about El Sid The Kid.”

Sid on the boat with Donovan, Greece, 1968

10 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2014

With his myriad of friends, acquaintances and close encoun-ters with the brightest stars of the era, Sid plans to revisit those pages and venture into the world of literature to coincide with his upcoming world tour under the auspices of Museum Masters In-ternational commencing later this year to open in Southampton, New York and travel to Korea, the Vittoriano in Rome and then the Centre Pompidou in Paris where Maurer merchandise creat-ed by Marilyn Goldberg and MMI will fill their gift stores and maintain the cultural continuum by teaching the young generation about the past grandeur of ‘The Stars.’

“Sid realized that the empire of music and art that he had helped to build by befriending the greatest musicians and band lead-

ers of the globe left him little time to pursue his true passion: painting,” notes Marilyn Gold-berg, who represents Maurer internation-ally through Museum Masters International, “Sid moved to Geor-gia where he has lived ever since. In a quieter and calmer locale, his painting thrived. Here he created his Ameri-cana series and Vanish-ing Georgia and devel-oped a vast catalog of works revolving around the Civil War. He con-tinues to portray an ev-er-expanding group of cultural icons including The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jerry Garcia, Ja-nis Joplin, Mama Cass, George Harrison, Mar-

ilyn Monroe, and the Rat Pack in Vegas, to name a few. His back-stage adventures with Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber and 1D also made it onto canvas.”

In the last decade, his work has hung in a wide variety of ven-ues, including the U.C.L.A. campus, the Carnegie Museum and Retroback Exhibition in Granada, Spain 2011 hosted by Sean Ferrer the son of Audrey Hepburn who Sid Maurer also painted. Sid also worked with many artists and photographers among them

Sid Maurer and Bob Guccione, founder of PENTHOUSE, were friends in London and New York. Bob, an accomplished fine atrtist

(and photographer) in his own right, came to Sid for instruction and all these years later, Sid has been commissioned to be an integral

part of the PENTHOUSE brand re-launch and world tour.

“SID NEVER RECEIVED RECOGNITION FORHIS TONGUE PAINTING.

Once again the major creators of the world lose the identity of all they have done by conglom-erates who turn their creativity into millions

without giving recognition to the true author.”—MARILYN GOLDBERG

Jerry Garcia

Americana

The famous Sticky Fingers album (1971) front cover with a workable zipper by Andy Warhol with the inset de-buting the tongue clearly reminisecent of Sid Maurer’s sketch done three years earlier for Brian Jones. When Maurer’s tongue was featured on merchandise sold in a Parisian department store, Musidor, which claimed own-ership of the logo, issued a cease and desist and Sid’s clothing line was pulled from the shelves.

C’est la vie. C’est la guerre.

11 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2014

Salvador Dali and Carl Vechten back in 1939. Sid’s works were purchased by Enrique Sabatier, from Spain, who was executive as-sistant to Dali for many years. Enrique gave this work to Museum Masters at the Salvador Dali exhibition in New York City in 2012.

With his myriad of friends, acquaintances and close encoun-ters with the brightest stars of the era, Sid plans to revisit those pages and venture into the world of literature.

The Celebrity Icons of Sid Maurer, a major hard-cover book is in production as well as a documentary on his Rock and Roll days with photos, letters and stories. A complementary book featuring his entire body of work from the Americana to Endangered Species series will be published as well.

Other examples to be included in Sid’s bible of stories will be another episode with Andrew Long Oldham when Sid visited him in Bogotá in 1997. From there, he then went on to Argentina to meet the parents of a little boy who was a great soccer player but was too small to be accepted onto any important league team. In those days the lad went by his given name, Lionel Andres. Today he is known as “Messi,” rated by some as the best footballer of all-time. Sid suggested that the parents try a growth hormone that was very popular in London and in the United States. It worked but the boy’s family did not have the money to continue his growth therapy. Sid then contacted a friend in Spain and secured the proper treatment for the boy,

Also included in the book will be Sid’s remembrances of Marilyn Mon-roe. They were best of friends and neighbors and often dined together. He did many photos, portraits and paintings of her. Based on the special relationship of his love for Marilyn Monroe and Marilyn Goldberg (his con-sultant on all business activities), he created the Marilyn series.

Pepsi Cola awarded him Artist of the Year and memorialized him by creating the Maurer Marilyn Pepsi Cola cans and bottles which went to all the exhibitions on Marilyn Monroe around the

As did his old buddy Warhol, Sid created an Endangered Species series

world resulting in very amicable relations between the estate and the artist. The deal is closed for the cans and bottles that have be-

come major collectables that traveled with The Marilyn Monroe Exhibi-tions created by Marilyn Goldberg of Museum Masters. On the horizon are the co-branded Marilyn Monroe Estate Sid Maurer signed limited edi-tions prints followed by the PENT-HOUSE Maurer co-brand limited editions prints of the PENTHOUSE Pets after a year-long negotiation as a commemoration to Guccione and the art lessons Sid gave him in Lon-don. “He came to me for insight and I told him ‘It’s not how you draw but what you do with your head.’” Later in New York, he went to Sid Maurer as his mentor and hired him as pho-to stylist for the PENTHOUSE Pets. Guccione’s magnificent townhouse, the setting for Caligula, was designed by Marilyn Goldberg, which started the initial relationship with the new PENTHOUSE team.

As a prime example of “what goes around comes around”, the new owners of the PENTHOUSE brand have ex-plored the archives and the warehous-es, Sid has ear-marked his portrait of Guccione for the new PENTHOUSE Gallery of Art and will start the first portfolio of Penthouse Pet Portrairs. Marilyn Goldberg has been engaged to do the new logo for the Penthouse Art Exhibition and Art Sales, of the co-brand PENTHOUSE~Maur-

er editions. All of which is being final-ized as this article goes to press. Meanwhile, says Sid, “I’m sitting in Atlanta, waiting for the Pets.”

Futbol

By VICTOR B. FORBES

Pepsi Marilyn Monroe by Sidney Maurer