In 1948, celebrity photographer Tom Kelley took a photograph of an out-of-work actress; a nude posed with arm outstretched against a scarlet background. That actress was Marilyn Monroe. In 1953, this photo became Playboy’s first ever centrefold in its inaugural issue. Kelley’s photograph has become one of the most viewed nudes in history and, as Norman Mailer wrote, is ‘breathtakingly beautiful’. This is but one image from a vast, previously unseen archive of Kelley’s visionary nude photography from the 1940s to 1970s, published for the first time by R|A|P
