Across the ages, individuals standing at the peak of each society's pyramid of power and fame have depended on artists to ensure their immortality: Khafre, pharaoh of Upper and Lower Egypt, conscripted an army of artisans to carve his likeness into the Great Sphinx to preserve it through the eternal sands of time.

Forty-five centuries later, and half a world away, aristocrats of American pop culture began seeking out Andy Warhol to etch their images into eternity. Courting the artist at his Silver Factory in Manhattan, or at the nearby Studio 54 nightclub, they sought pharaoh-like fame without end.

But it was Warhol himself who selected which figures to transform into painted icons of an age, starting with a series of silk-screen portraits of star-crossed actress Marilyn Monroe and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.