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Lot Essay
'[The de Kooning paintings] started out as collages using a book of de Kooning drawings of women [Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure (2002)]. About two years ago I was between studios and sat with the book in my lap, drawing in it. I've always loved de Kooning's women paintings. When he collaged the Camel cigarette "T-zone" smile onto the heads of his women, it was the beginning of Pop art. That's like 1953-54? That's just my opinion... Anyway, what happened with the book was that all of a sudden I started to draw and collage men alongside his women. After this "continuation," I sent out the collages to get ink-jetted and blown up on canvas, and when they came back I painted and painted and painted and became Edward G Robinson in themovie "Scarlet Street" well, not really, but it makes a nice story'
(R. Prince, quoted in 'Everyone Knows This is Nowhere', interview with D. Ammirati, in Modern Painters, 18 September 2007).
'It was time to pay homage to an artist I really like. Some people worship at the altar - I believe in de Kooning'
(R. Prince, quoted at https://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2011-03-30_richard-prince/).
Untitled (de Kooning), executed in 2005, is a superb example of Richard Prince's famous de Kooning series, a group of works in which the artist hones his signature style of appropriation art to the finest - and sharpest - of edges. In an act of simultaneous desecration and homage, Prince has, by way of a complex, multi-layered process, profoundly altered and subverted a classic de Kooning drawing of three women figures. Prince's interventions continue de Kooning's subversion of the art historical convention of the alluring female nude, depicting three monumental, inscrutable figures hovering in an indeterminate space flanked by roughly gestured nude and charcoal blocks of colour. They also further Prince's distinctive practice of re-presenting "found" images in his paintings, as in his much beloved "cowboy" and "nurse" paintings. Untitled (de Kooning) expands Prince's stable of appropriated material beyond commercial or popular imagery and into the realm of fine art, and thus in a contradiction typical of Prince's work, blurring any distinction between the realms of "high" and "low" art.
The car is one of Prince's most enduring motifs, owing to the artist's personal interest in muscle cars. Automobiles in various configurations have appeared across the artist's oeuvre, from ready-made mail-order car hoods, to a life-scale working model of a 1970 Dodge Challenger, which Prince presented at the Frieze Art Projects in 2007 and was the focus of the artist's Guggenheim retrospective. The car has come to be a symbol in Prince's work for American culture; its reference imparting the same mythical status as his cowboys and bikers, conjuring an American dream to be on the open road. Prince's long-running interest in cars extends to his prolific collecting of first editions of Kerouac's On the Road and car enthusiast magazines. Proclaimed as 'The Duchamp of the Muscle Car' in the New York Times in 2007, Prince enshrined the classic American muscle car as a pop culture icon. '[L]ike Prince's appropriated Cowboy photographs, reference archetypes of Americana -muscle cars invoke near-sacred ideals of youth, speed, romance, and danger.' (J, Bankowsky, Richard Prince: Spiritual America, exh. cat., Guggenheim, New York 2007). Here, Prince's treatment of the car is more personal. Sketched in the artist's expressionistic hand, the lines are intentionally quick.
Untitled (de Kooning), Prince began by sketching, painting, and collaging photographic material - primarily sourced from adult magazines - over a reproduction of the original drawing. This process obscured the original form of de Kooning's figures, building hybrid or hermaphroditic characters defined by both the approximating, gestural lines of paint as well as the softer photographic imagery. The resulting collage was subsequently massively enlarged and laserjet-printed on canvas, creating further distance from the source materials, and finally painted over with sweeping gestural brushstrokes which clearly recall de Kooning's own painterly technique. Although Prince's interferences at first seem disruptive, his techniques are perhaps not so distant from de Kooning's original practice - the abstract artist dabbled with collage himself, an innovative aspect of his painting that Prince greatly admires. 'I've always loved de Kooning's women paintings. When he collaged the Camel cigarette "T-zone" smiles onto the heads of his women, it was the beginning of Pop art. That's like 1953-54? That's just my opinion' (R. Prince, quoted in 'Everyone Knows This is Nowhere', in Modern Painters, 18 September 2007).
Unlike Prince's contemporaries Jake and Dinos Chapman's infamous Disasters of War series, in which the prankster artistic duo work directly on an original set of Goya prints, Prince does not interfere with the actual de Kooning but rather on a photographically reproduced image of the drawing reprinted in the book Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure. This layering of artistic gestures introduces a conceptual interrogation of notions of artistic authorship and aura, and of the current day practice of creating endless reproductions of supposedly unique works of art. Forceful and enigmatic, Untitled (de Kooning) is a masterful and sophisticated consummation of Richard Prince's most iconic and fascinating work.
(R. Prince, quoted in 'Everyone Knows This is Nowhere', interview with D. Ammirati, in Modern Painters, 18 September 2007).
'It was time to pay homage to an artist I really like. Some people worship at the altar - I believe in de Kooning'
(R. Prince, quoted at https://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2011-03-30_richard-prince/).
Untitled (de Kooning), executed in 2005, is a superb example of Richard Prince's famous de Kooning series, a group of works in which the artist hones his signature style of appropriation art to the finest - and sharpest - of edges. In an act of simultaneous desecration and homage, Prince has, by way of a complex, multi-layered process, profoundly altered and subverted a classic de Kooning drawing of three women figures. Prince's interventions continue de Kooning's subversion of the art historical convention of the alluring female nude, depicting three monumental, inscrutable figures hovering in an indeterminate space flanked by roughly gestured nude and charcoal blocks of colour. They also further Prince's distinctive practice of re-presenting "found" images in his paintings, as in his much beloved "cowboy" and "nurse" paintings. Untitled (de Kooning) expands Prince's stable of appropriated material beyond commercial or popular imagery and into the realm of fine art, and thus in a contradiction typical of Prince's work, blurring any distinction between the realms of "high" and "low" art.
The car is one of Prince's most enduring motifs, owing to the artist's personal interest in muscle cars. Automobiles in various configurations have appeared across the artist's oeuvre, from ready-made mail-order car hoods, to a life-scale working model of a 1970 Dodge Challenger, which Prince presented at the Frieze Art Projects in 2007 and was the focus of the artist's Guggenheim retrospective. The car has come to be a symbol in Prince's work for American culture; its reference imparting the same mythical status as his cowboys and bikers, conjuring an American dream to be on the open road. Prince's long-running interest in cars extends to his prolific collecting of first editions of Kerouac's On the Road and car enthusiast magazines. Proclaimed as 'The Duchamp of the Muscle Car' in the New York Times in 2007, Prince enshrined the classic American muscle car as a pop culture icon. '[L]ike Prince's appropriated Cowboy photographs, reference archetypes of Americana -muscle cars invoke near-sacred ideals of youth, speed, romance, and danger.' (J, Bankowsky, Richard Prince: Spiritual America, exh. cat., Guggenheim, New York 2007). Here, Prince's treatment of the car is more personal. Sketched in the artist's expressionistic hand, the lines are intentionally quick.
Untitled (de Kooning), Prince began by sketching, painting, and collaging photographic material - primarily sourced from adult magazines - over a reproduction of the original drawing. This process obscured the original form of de Kooning's figures, building hybrid or hermaphroditic characters defined by both the approximating, gestural lines of paint as well as the softer photographic imagery. The resulting collage was subsequently massively enlarged and laserjet-printed on canvas, creating further distance from the source materials, and finally painted over with sweeping gestural brushstrokes which clearly recall de Kooning's own painterly technique. Although Prince's interferences at first seem disruptive, his techniques are perhaps not so distant from de Kooning's original practice - the abstract artist dabbled with collage himself, an innovative aspect of his painting that Prince greatly admires. 'I've always loved de Kooning's women paintings. When he collaged the Camel cigarette "T-zone" smiles onto the heads of his women, it was the beginning of Pop art. That's like 1953-54? That's just my opinion' (R. Prince, quoted in 'Everyone Knows This is Nowhere', in Modern Painters, 18 September 2007).
Unlike Prince's contemporaries Jake and Dinos Chapman's infamous Disasters of War series, in which the prankster artistic duo work directly on an original set of Goya prints, Prince does not interfere with the actual de Kooning but rather on a photographically reproduced image of the drawing reprinted in the book Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure. This layering of artistic gestures introduces a conceptual interrogation of notions of artistic authorship and aura, and of the current day practice of creating endless reproductions of supposedly unique works of art. Forceful and enigmatic, Untitled (de Kooning) is a masterful and sophisticated consummation of Richard Prince's most iconic and fascinating work.