Richard Prince Untitled (dress) completed in 1978. This piece has yet to be editioned.
the skin, as seen in the tip of Madame Gautreau’s ear and the breastbone of the Nurse. This pinkish quality reminds us of raw and unadorned flesh. The artists chose their subject’s position carefully; half of Madame Gautreau’s face is hidden in profile, just as half of the Nurse’s face is concealed by a
John Singer Sargent Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau), 1883–84 Oil on canvas. 82 1/8 x 43 1/4 in. (208.6 x 109.9 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
mask. This obscure rendering gives both subjects a power of mystery as well as a certain timidity, making their intentions ever more ponderous and their attitudes indecipherable. And while Madame Gautreau wears a crescent tiara
realize one’s own potential of self-discovery. The quiet reticent figure we see
above her auburn hair, the nurse’s brunette locks are crowned with a prim,
on the original Florence Stuart cover can no longer be doubted in her beauty
starched hat.
and self-worth, but stands erotically in the forefront of the picture, declaring
Richard Prince has long been hailed as the preeminent manipulator of
inquiry into the ethos of American vernacular in its menacing transformation
traditional forms and figures, shifting subverted norms and preconceived
of an innocuous character and its appropriation of one of the most famous
notions into more complex narrative structures. Runaway Nurse, in all her
and controversial portraits in Art History. Through this seminal work, Prince
desirability and wickedness, liberates the character of the nurse from notions
announces his reign as a leading manipulator of social and cultural symbols;
of forbidden or restrained sexuality. The runaway we see before us is not merely
he extracts a subliminal carnality from the original image and brings to the
a subordinate medical assistant, but an embodiment of the American drive to
forefront suppressed truths about its meaning and its making.
her solitary sexuality and independence. Runaway Nurse represents a piercing
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