Look Inside
Which art books, prints and posters are available by and about this artist? Here is a sample of items of interest to a typical collector:
Essay from Prince released with coinciding show at Gladston Gallery in 2015. No Date, Colophon or ISBN in book.
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Richard Prince, American (b. 1949, Panama Canal Zone)
Prince is a pivotal figure in contemporary art, best known for his groundbreaking work in appropriation art. Emerging in the late 1970s and gaining prominence in the 1980s, Prince became a key part of the Pictures Generation, alongside artists like Cindy Sherman and Sherrie Levine.
He first drew attention for his re-photographed Marlboro advertisements, stripping commercial imagery of context to reveal its cultural coding. This series, titled Cowboys, would go on to define his signature method: re-contextualizing mass media to critique authorship, authenticity, and American identity.
Prince’s work spans photography, painting, and mixed media. He frequently employs ironic detachment, exploring themes like consumerism, masculinity, celebrity, and the mythology of Americana. His Nurse Paintings, based on pulp novel covers, blend high art with kitsch aesthetics and have become icons of postmodern pastiche.
Equally controversial and influential, Prince has been at the center of legal debates over fair use, particularly in his Instagram Portraits and Canal Zone series. His practice continues to probe the boundaries between original and copy, image and object.
Prince lives and works in upstate New York, where he maintains a vast studio and personal book collection. He is also a publisher and collector of rare books and ephemera, further blurring the line between artist and archivist.
Richard Prince’s work is held in numerous prominent public and private collections, including:
