Beschreibung:

14 Richard Prince Wayward Nurse (Crashed) 2006-2010 Acrylic and inkjet on canvas. 65 1/2 x 50 1/8 in. (166.4 x 127.3 cm.) Signed, titled and dated “R. Prince Wayward Nurse 2006,” “2009 R. Prince Wayward Nurse” and “R. Prince Crashed 2010” on the overlap.
Provenance Gagosian Gallery, London Exhibited London, Gagosian Gallery, Crash (Homage to JG Ballard), February 11 – April 1, 2010 Catalogue Essay A Nurse’s Job is to Pamper and Please Men…She came into their homes, a private nurse who was well paid to soothe the nerves of rich men, to quiet the fears of lonely women, but Kay Taylor was too beautiful, too inflammable herself, to soothe any man, rich or poor. Wrecked bodies and tortured hearts need healing, and a private nurse is supposed to help them. But Kay, it so happened, had a love-hungry heart of her own. A nurse’s job is to pamper her patients, especially the men, but Kay needed pampering herself, and as a private nurse she was able to find it, with the husband of one patient, the sweetheart of another… (Norman Bligh, Wayward Nurse, 1953) Wayward. Defined as following one’s own capricious, wanton, or depraved inclinations: ungovernable (Merriam Webster). The Nurse. Historically typecast as a paragon of goodness, a benevolent caregiver and healer. However the 20th century has played with that role and eroticized it, casting her as a different character: a lustful and naughty object of sexual desire. It is this striking tension between the good and the wicked that Richard Prince so astutely captures in his Nurse series and what makes these works such intriguing and sought after paintings. Richard Prince The name alone conjures up a whirlwind of images, all indelibly cemented in the culture of American kitsch and mass media. One cannot hear his name without picturing his most recognizable icons: Cowboys, Jokes, Nurses. The visual iconography of Prince’s work over the last thirty years spans the gamut of the American vernacular from the opulent to the seedy. His early photographic representations of lavish luxury items remarked on consumerism while those of almost-naked women splayed across their boyfriends’ motorcycles addressed overt sexuality and gender roles. From his early unadulterated snapshots of cigarette ads to his latest painterly homage to de Kooning, his art re-appropriates and re-imagines what art means and what it can be. Prince’s attraction to the nurse is manifold and somewhat of a paradox. He once explained in an interview, “I’m painting nurses. I like their hats. Their aprons. Their shoes. My mother was a nurse. My sister was a nurse. My grandmother and two cousins were nurses. I collect ‘nurse’ books. Paperbacks. You can’t miss them. They’re all over the airport. I like the words ‘nurse,’ ‘nurses,’ ‘nursing.’ I’m recovering” (Interview with R. Prince, “Like a Beautiful Scar on Your Head,” Modern Painters 15, no. 3, Autumn 2002). Ever the avid collector and cultural curator, these ‘nurse’ books became the inspiration for his Nurse paintings. Based on the 1953 Norman Bligh novel whose spoiler reads: “A private nurse learns the naked truth about men!”, Wayward Nurse¸ painted between 2006 and 2010, is arguably the most visually striking and important work from this series. Painted in vivid reds set against bright white it screams of macabre violence and unadulterated sex — the viewer finds themselves transfixed (and shocked) by the sheer visual splendor of the canvas. Prince’s color choice and brushwork is so vibrant and evocative that it is impossible not to imagine her attending to the victims of Warhol’s Red Car Crash. Bligh’s Wayward Nurse stands in a door frame, with her hand evocatively resting on the door handle and a somewhat mischievous look on her face. Her mail suitor leers wantonly at her from a bed with an expectant expression. Her bare knee is exposed under her nurse’s uniform and her eyes look off into the distance, perhaps checking to ensure their privacy. Bligh’s nurse (and Prince’s) is evocative of Roy Lichtenstein’s Nurse from 1964 who also looks as if she has been momentarily caught off guard or surprised by some lurid scheme. These are indeed wayward nurses, the cover of Bligh’s book smacking of an illicit tryst about to take place. Prin