“Anything that’s easel-size is more spontaneous. It’s easier for me to work spontaneously when I can overwhelm the canvas with my body, when I can encompass it.”
- Nicole Eisenman
Nicole Eisenman’s Mountain Man is striking in its immediacy and delightful tactile quality, its enchanting effect magnified by the canvas’ intimate scale. The man’s deeply expressive eyes and the thick impasto of earthy red, pink, orange and yellow pigments that form his nose captivate the viewer and exemplify Eisenman’s unique figurative language. One of the most important artists of her generation, Eisenman was born in Verdun, France, in 1965 and currently lives and works in New York. The present work was included in the major solo travelling exhibition organized by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in 2014, and works spanning Eisenman’s career were recently shown at the New Museum in 2016 in a survey exhibition.
Leo Koenig Inc., New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2006
New York, Leo Koenig Inc., Nicole Eisenman, Progress: Real and Imagined, May 13 - July 17, 2006
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Dear Nemesis, Nicole Eisenman 1993-2013, January 24, 2014 – September 6, 2015, p. 53 (illustrated)
Susan Bee and Mira Schor (eds.), M/E/A/N/I/N/G 25th Anniversary Edition, 2012, online, p. 33 (illustrated)
“20 Artists Who Make New York”, Elephant, no. 22, Spring 2015, p. 143 (illustrated)