A 26-foot-high metal statue of Marilyn Monroe that has stood in front of the Palm Springs Art Museum since 2021 will move to a city park after a protracted legal battle.
Forever Marilyn, by artist Seward Johnson, captures the iconic scene from the Billy Wilder comedy The Seven Year Itch (1955) in which a gust of wind from a passing subway train sends the screen icon’s dress flying into the air.
The sculpture first landed a few blocks from the museum from 2012–14. P.S. Resorts, a consortium of hotels geared toward boosting tourism, had worked ever since to get the sculpture back to Palm Springs, and bought it for $1 million in 2020, in hopes of displaying it permanently. It landed in front of the museum the next year, and part of Museum Way was closed to traffic for a three-year trial period.
The Committee to Relocate Marilyn (or Crema), which included influential Palm Springs residents such as fashion designer Trina Turk and collector Chris Menrad, sued the city to have the sculpture removed. The suit, which was dismissed but reinstated on appeal last year, dealt not only with the placement of the sculpture but also the protracted closure of part of Museum Way, which Crema argued was beyond the city council’s approval.
The museum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The sculpture was the subject of controversy from the moment the city council agreed to site it in front of the museum, partly because, unlike the film (and related publicity photos), which showed Monroe from the front, the sculptor took advantage of the opportunity to expose her backside.
“You come out of the museum and the first thing you’re going to see is a 26-foot-tall Marilyn Monroe with her entire backside and underwear exposed,” the museum’s then-executive director and CEO Louis Grachos told council members, according to the Desert Sun. “We serve over 100,000 school-age children that come to our museum every single year. What message does that send to our young people, our visitors, and community to present a statue that objectifies women, is sexually charged and disrespectful?
“Can you imagine when #MeToo gets a hold of this?” Grachos asked the council. “It’s not just going to hurt the museum, but it’s going to hurt our whole community.”
Seward Johnson, Forever Marilyn, viewed across from the Palm Springs Art Museum in 2022. Photo: George Rose/Getty Images.
Museum board chair Steven H. Maloney, moreover, argued that the placement of the sculpture so near the museum would imply institutional approval.
Even as he acknowledged the controversy, councilman J.R. Roberts said that “at the end of the day she’s become part of our brand.” Indeed, as Slate reported this summer, cameras installed by P.S. Resorts show that up to 90,000 people visit the statue every month.
“The City of Palm Springs is pleased to announce that, during today’s closed session, the City Council reached an agreement in principle with P.S. Resorts and Crema to relocate the Forever Marilyn sculpture to a location to be determined in the Downtown Park and move forward with the street vacation,” said mayor Jeffrey Bernstein. “The City expects to have finalization of the specific location within the Downtown Park in the next 30 days… The City Council is very pleased to have found a satisfactory solution to this issue, which has divided so many within our community.”
Johnson, son of a co-founder of the Johnson & Johnson corporate empire, is known for life-size bronze sculptures of people engaged in everyday activities. Fans can visit many of his works at the 42-acre Grounds for Sculpture compound that he founded in New Jersey, where there are giant sculptures depicting Manet’s Olympia, the famed Alfred Eisenstaedt photo V-J Day in Times Square, Monet’s garden at Giverny, and more.