Richard Prince, White Cube Gallery (London), Card, 1997. A portrait taken outside Prince’s home in the small town of Rensselaerville, NY.
Card
Size: 6 x 6 inches
Available – $125
Gallery 98 is fortunate to have recently acquired a substantial collection of catalogues and books by Richard Prince. Below you will find a small selection of these publications, as well as some of Prince’s gallery cards that were already in our inventory. What emerges is a mini-portrait of Prince, one of the most innovative, provocative and financially successful artists of the 1980s.
As a pioneering member of the Pictures Generation, Prince became famous for re-photographing magazine advertisements, especially the Marlborough cowboy. The appropriation of such archetypal imagery would remain at the heart of his work which includes both photography and works on canvas. One iconic appropriation followed another: transcriptions of verbal jokes, New Yorker cartoons, girls on motorcycles, and nurses from the covers of pulp paperbacks. Prince also created photography books, autobiographical reflections told with both appropriated images and photos from his own life.
Always pushing the envelope, Prince’s oeuvre has repeatedly placed him at the center of legal debates about the limits of appropriation and fair use. His hijacking of an already controversial Gary Gross photograph of a naked, ten-year-old Brooke Shields, led to a parting of the ways with his gallery Metro Pictures, as well as, threats of physical harm by Gross’ attorney. Prince’s use of Patrick Cariou’s pictures of Rastafarians as the basis for his painting series Canal Zone, led to legal action that was ultimately settled out-of-court. Earlier this year, Prince also had to settle with two photographers whose photos he had used in New Portraits, a series of images he lifted from Instagram.
To see Gallery 98’s complete Prince inventory, please visit our special Richard Prince Page.
Early Appropriations
Richard Prince, Black and White in Color Photographs, Metro Pictures, Folded Card, 1982. To quote from the Metro Pictures press release: “Richard Prince’s large-scale photographs…combine black and white images against deeply colored backgrounds. The images, found in magazine advertisements, are figures engaged in beach and water activities placed against vivid “sunsets” taken from different advertisements.”
Card
Size: 7 x 7 inches
Sold
The Spiritual America Controversy
Top: Richard Prince, A Photograph of Brooke Shields By Gary Gross, Spiritual America, Card, 1983 – Price Upon Request
Bottom: Sandra Schulman, Spiritual America: The Catalog 1983 – 1984, 60-Page Book, 2015. Sandra Schulman, a witness to the events, tells the dramatic story of Prince’s unauthorized re-photographing of a nude photo of pre-pubescent Brooke Shields, and the surreptitious way he exhibited it at Spiritual America, a do-it-yourself gallery on the Lower East Side. In 2014 Prince’s photograph sold at auction for $4 million.
Catalog included with purchase of card
A Retrospective with Cowboys, Jokes, Gangs and Girlfriends
Richard Prince, Whitney Museum, 192-Page Catalogue, 1992. The Whitney Museum catalogue offers a sampling of all of Prince’s biggest hits to date, as well as, an interview with the artist by photographer Larry Clark.
Hardcover Catalogue with Dust Jacket
Size: 9 x 12.5 inches
Available – $150
Disparate Pictures Create an Autobiographical Narrative
Richard Prince, Adult Comedy Action Drama, Scalo, 256-Page Book, 1995. This collection of 235 full-page photographs provides an idiosyncratic narrative of Richard Prince’s life, interests, fantasies and fetishes.
Hardcover Book with Dust Jacket
Size: 8 x 11.5 inches
Available — $225
Nurses Inspired By Pulp Paperbacks
Richard Prince, Lynn Valley, Presentation House Gallery, 44-Page Book, 2006. Prince put together this collection of diverse images in 2006 at a time when he was enjoying great success with his Nurse paintings. The nurse motif has proved to be Prince’s most successful series. Ten of these paintings have sold at auction for between $4 and $9 million.
Catalogue
Size: 8 x 10.5 inches
Available — $100
Patrick Cariou Sues Richard Prince
Richard Prince, Canal Zone, Gagosian Gallery (New York), Foam Board Card, 2008. This thick invitation card is for the first exhibition of Prince’s Canal Zone paintings. For this series, Prince enlarged images of Rastafarians by the photographer Patrick Cariou, to which he added painted and collaged elements. Cariou sued, raising issues about copyright, fair-use and creative transformation.
Card
Size: 8.25 x 11.5
Available — $175
Covering Jackson Pollock
Richard Prince, Covering Pollock, Guild Hall Museum, Three-Fold Card, 2011. Prince first became interested in becoming an artist after seeing the work of abstract expressionist artist Jackson Pollock.
Card
Size: 8.5 x 11 inches
Sold
Legal Wrangles Over Instagram Appropriations
Richard Prince, New Portraits, 72-Page Booklet, 2014. New Portraits consists of images that Prince lifted from Instagram to which he had added short comments. After the Supreme Court’s recent ruling favoring Lynn Goldsmith in her case against Andy Warhol’s appropriation of one of her photographs, Prince reluctantly settled with two photographers who had brought a similar legal case against him. One of the photographers was Donald Graham whose “Rastafarian Smoking a Joint” is part of this publication.
Catalogue
Size: 6 x 8 inches
Available — $200
