Richard Prince - Contemporary Art Part II New York Friday, May 13, 2011 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist

  • Catalogue Essay

    Richard Prince first showcased his iconic de Koonings, artworks devoted to the tribute of the Abstract Expressionist master, at his Guggenheim retrospective in 2007: “ ‘It was time to pay homage to an artist I really like,’ says Prince, ‘Some people worship at the altar—I believe in de Kooning.’ Prince’s offering to his idol involved first creating a montage of body parts cut from catalogues and vintage girlie magazines… He then paints over most, if not all, of the original material with dark, sludgy colors before conjuring up crude figures in vague homage to de Kooning’s ‘Women’ series. The idea for these aesthetically challenging paintings came to Prince when he was leafing through a catalogue of de Kooning’s work. ‘I started to sketch over the paintings,’ he explains. ‘Sometimes I’d draw a man to his woman. There’s a contribution—for me it’s all about 50/50.’”

    (Steven Daly, “Richard Prince’s Outside Streak”, Vanity Fair, December, 2007).

  • Artist Biography

    Richard Prince

    American • 1947

    For more than three decades, Prince's universally celebrated practice has pursued the subversive strategy of appropriating commonplace imagery and themes – such as photographs of quintessential Western cowboys and "biker chicks," the front covers of nurse romance novellas, and jokes and cartoons – to deconstruct singular notions of authorship, authenticity and identity.

    Starting his career as a member of the Pictures Generation in the 1970s alongside such contemporaries as Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo and Sherrie Levine, Prince is widely acknowledged as having expanded the accepted parameters of art-making with his so-called "re-photography" technique – a revolutionary appropriation strategy of photographing pre-existing images from magazine ads and presenting them as his own. Prince's practice of appropriating familiar subject matter exposes the inner mechanics of desire and power pervading the media and our cultural consciousness at large, particularly as they relate to identity and gender constructs.

    View More Works

210

Untitled (De Kooning Book)

2006
Acrylic, conté crayon, graphite and paper collage.
13 1/2 x 19 1/4 x 1 in. (34.3 x 48.9 x 2.5 cm.)
Signed "Richard Prince" lower right.

Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000 

Sold for $110,500

Contemporary Art Part II

13 May 2011
New York