18 PROPERTY OF AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION Richard Prince Runaway Nurse 2006 inkjet and acrylic on canvas 80 x 52 in. (203.2 x 132.1 cm) Signed, titled and dated “Richard Prince, 2006, Runaway Nurse #2” on the reverse.
Provenance Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner Catalogue Essay 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. RICHARD PRINCE (Richard Prince interview, “Like a Beautiful Scar On Your Head”, Modern Painters, Special American Issue, Autumn 2002, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 68-75.) A contemporary master of the “series,” exemplified by his renowned Cowboys, Girlfriends, and Jokes, Richard Prince offers a meditation on American popculture by aptly focusing on a theme and stretching the boundaries of the original subject matter. The original pulp fiction paperbacks from the middle of the Twentieth Century are liberated from dusty shelves in vintage bookstores and given new life. The doting nurses are plucked from their yesteryear settings and re-imagined as formidableseductresses, conflating all the stereotypes of the too-attractive healthcare professional. In the case of our present lot, Runaway Nurse is based on the original novel by Florence Stuart (Macfadden-Bartell, 1964). With his choice of super title, Prince continues his dissection of American Pop Culture; fusing the nurse with the stock American character of the runaway, Prince shows us a new woman, one who flees the responsibilities that society imposes upon her. Through his Nurse paintings, Richard Prince transforms our notions of the nurturing and demure care-giver into freshly retro and shockingly wanton portraits of wicked and naughty femme fatales. The once servile characters become liberated and energized through Prince’s famed treatment: the appropriation of images from pop-culture ephemera. In this Twenty First Century series, Prince, a bibliophile and avid collector of first-edition 1950s and 1960s medical pulp fiction, first scans the evocative book jackets and then transfers the enlarged inkjet print to canvas. Once the image has been properly oriented and cropped, he applies layers of smudged and dripping paint, covering the surface in a messy and lush palette of lurid pigments. The original backgrounds, which once revealed some of the supporting characters and settings within the novels—a doting gentleman, an envious friend, a darkened bedroom—are entirely masked by the layers of thick paint, ranging from twilight blues, emerald greens, sunset oranges, and in the case of the present lot, bloodied reds. Prince furthers his manipulation of the subject by wholly transforming them into something bolder and lustier than one could ever imagine. Prince achieves his multi-medium canvas through obscuring the entirety of the background—a handsome couple and a starry night—behind viscous stratums of red pigment, and, at once, she stands alone as the paradigm of passion and lust. In the present lot, we are left alone with a stripped nurse, seductively leaning against a metal bed frame. As we begin to place the visual cues together, we wonder who has abandoned this nurse in such a state. Her blouse has furiously been torn open, revealing jet-black lingerie and a slightly raised, taunting shoulder. With her eyes downcast and her mouth covered by a semitransparent surgical mask, she cleverly conceals her expression. We are left only with her posture, curves, and scraps of clothing…and, of course, Prince’s glaring text in the upper left corner. And, just above the title, the enticing forward to the book glows through the bloody pigment; “Was young Nurse Winters enough of a woman to make the man she loved forget his past?” With this juxtaposition of text and the visual splendor of the nurse, we ponder the question posed by the author. Her smooth white skin, swelling bosom and tiny waist, makes us marvel at how this woman could ever be considered less than enough. When compared to the original cover illustrati
18 PROPERTY OF AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION Richard Prince Runaway Nurse 2006 inkjet and acrylic on canvas 80 x 52 in. (203.2 x 132.1 cm) Signed, titled and dated “Richard Prince, 2006, Runaway Nurse #2” on the reverse.
Provenance Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner Catalogue Essay 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. RICHARD PRINCE (Richard Prince interview, “Like a Beautiful Scar On Your Head”, Modern Painters, Special American Issue, Autumn 2002, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 68-75.) A contemporary master of the “series,” exemplified by his renowned Cowboys, Girlfriends, and Jokes, Richard Prince offers a meditation on American popculture by aptly focusing on a theme and stretching the boundaries of the original subject matter. The original pulp fiction paperbacks from the middle of the Twentieth Century are liberated from dusty shelves in vintage bookstores and given new life. The doting nurses are plucked from their yesteryear settings and re-imagined as formidableseductresses, conflating all the stereotypes of the too-attractive healthcare professional. In the case of our present lot, Runaway Nurse is based on the original novel by Florence Stuart (Macfadden-Bartell, 1964). With his choice of super title, Prince continues his dissection of American Pop Culture; fusing the nurse with the stock American character of the runaway, Prince shows us a new woman, one who flees the responsibilities that society imposes upon her. Through his Nurse paintings, Richard Prince transforms our notions of the nurturing and demure care-giver into freshly retro and shockingly wanton portraits of wicked and naughty femme fatales. The once servile characters become liberated and energized through Prince’s famed treatment: the appropriation of images from pop-culture ephemera. In this Twenty First Century series, Prince, a bibliophile and avid collector of first-edition 1950s and 1960s medical pulp fiction, first scans the evocative book jackets and then transfers the enlarged inkjet print to canvas. Once the image has been properly oriented and cropped, he applies layers of smudged and dripping paint, covering the surface in a messy and lush palette of lurid pigments. The original backgrounds, which once revealed some of the supporting characters and settings within the novels—a doting gentleman, an envious friend, a darkened bedroom—are entirely masked by the layers of thick paint, ranging from twilight blues, emerald greens, sunset oranges, and in the case of the present lot, bloodied reds. Prince furthers his manipulation of the subject by wholly transforming them into something bolder and lustier than one could ever imagine. Prince achieves his multi-medium canvas through obscuring the entirety of the background—a handsome couple and a starry night—behind viscous stratums of red pigment, and, at once, she stands alone as the paradigm of passion and lust. In the present lot, we are left alone with a stripped nurse, seductively leaning against a metal bed frame. As we begin to place the visual cues together, we wonder who has abandoned this nurse in such a state. Her blouse has furiously been torn open, revealing jet-black lingerie and a slightly raised, taunting shoulder. With her eyes downcast and her mouth covered by a semitransparent surgical mask, she cleverly conceals her expression. We are left only with her posture, curves, and scraps of clothing…and, of course, Prince’s glaring text in the upper left corner. And, just above the title, the enticing forward to the book glows through the bloody pigment; “Was young Nurse Winters enough of a woman to make the man she loved forget his past?” With this juxtaposition of text and the visual splendor of the nurse, we ponder the question posed by the author. Her smooth white skin, swelling bosom and tiny waist, makes us marvel at how this woman could ever be considered less than enough. When compared to the original cover illustrati
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.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
