Photos 1970s 1980s
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
The date in the subtitles below is the date of the print when known.
not including Sherman.
See also : Photo
Chronology : 1980
The date in the subtitles below is the date of the print when known.
not including Sherman.
See also : Photo
Chronology : 1980
1973 To Her Majesty by Gilbert and George
2008 SOLD for £ 1.9M by Christie's
Students in sculpture, Gilbert and George observe other artists, who create when they are no longer drunk. It is fake art. To express real life, they imagine that the real work of art will be themselves. In 1972 they sing together on stage with an impassive face, without looking at each other, endless insipid songs with drunken lyrics. They are the Singing Sculptures of the music hall. Their repertoire is absurdity.
When they are being filmed, they waste less time than on stage. The video in which they glorify gin by singing Gordon's makes us very very drunk is a culmination of their new style of provocation.
It was at the same time and for the same reason that they tried photography, in the form of a series of installations titled Drinking Pieces or Drinking Sculptures. Among the blurry photos that evoke their visions of drunkards, appear their portraits in suits and ties, often duplicated in several places of the assembly.
The overall shape may evoke a silhouette but will soon become rectangular. To Her Majesty, produced in 1973, belongs to this period of transition. The work consists of 37 black and white photos in a symmetrical structure in five groups, for a total dimension of 145 x 350 cm. The title is a toast, of course. The skillfully distributed self-portraits have become the focal points. For the rest, the blur is replaced by insignificant details of their favorite pub.
To Her Majesty was sold on June 30, 2008 by Christie's for £ 1.9M from a lower estimate of £ 400K, lot 27.
Gilbert and George found with the photo the ideal medium to propagate their message, which will become increasingly political. They refuse the standardization of society and the socialism. Before Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger, they were the pioneers of protest photography.
When they are being filmed, they waste less time than on stage. The video in which they glorify gin by singing Gordon's makes us very very drunk is a culmination of their new style of provocation.
It was at the same time and for the same reason that they tried photography, in the form of a series of installations titled Drinking Pieces or Drinking Sculptures. Among the blurry photos that evoke their visions of drunkards, appear their portraits in suits and ties, often duplicated in several places of the assembly.
The overall shape may evoke a silhouette but will soon become rectangular. To Her Majesty, produced in 1973, belongs to this period of transition. The work consists of 37 black and white photos in a symmetrical structure in five groups, for a total dimension of 145 x 350 cm. The title is a toast, of course. The skillfully distributed self-portraits have become the focal points. For the rest, the blur is replaced by insignificant details of their favorite pub.
To Her Majesty was sold on June 30, 2008 by Christie's for £ 1.9M from a lower estimate of £ 400K, lot 27.
Gilbert and George found with the photo the ideal medium to propagate their message, which will become increasingly political. They refuse the standardization of society and the socialism. Before Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger, they were the pioneers of protest photography.
1977 Red Morning by Gilbert and George
2013 SOLD for $ 1.8M by Christie's
The almost single theme of the dual team Gilbert and George is the condition of life in London, not always easy in the East End where they live since 1968 in a house of the 18th century.
They are anti-conformists in all their actions. When they declare themselves royalists, it is because they perceive in the communism the threat of a social leveling. Their mural installations are assemblages of heteroclite photographs certainly inspired by their neighbors the punks.
In 1977 the socialists progress too much to their liking. They create a series of 17 prophetic works under the title Red Morning to predict by the subtitles all the coming disasters including Attack, Death, Dirt, Scandal.
Each opus is a regular rectangle of three to five elements in each row and column. The images are divided into three themes : the self-portrait of one or the other of the two artists standing in shirt-sleeves in a vulnerable attitude, large buildings in the City and the urban surrounding reflected in a puddle. Some elements are colored in dark red.
Hate is a 240 x 200 cm collage of sixteen elements 60 x 50 cm. The twelve photos of the perimeter are colored. This artwork was sold for $ 1.8M by Christie's on November 12, 2013, lot 24.
Hell was sold for £ 850K by Christie's on October 3, 2017, lot 21.
They are anti-conformists in all their actions. When they declare themselves royalists, it is because they perceive in the communism the threat of a social leveling. Their mural installations are assemblages of heteroclite photographs certainly inspired by their neighbors the punks.
In 1977 the socialists progress too much to their liking. They create a series of 17 prophetic works under the title Red Morning to predict by the subtitles all the coming disasters including Attack, Death, Dirt, Scandal.
Each opus is a regular rectangle of three to five elements in each row and column. The images are divided into three themes : the self-portrait of one or the other of the two artists standing in shirt-sleeves in a vulnerable attitude, large buildings in the City and the urban surrounding reflected in a puddle. Some elements are colored in dark red.
Hate is a 240 x 200 cm collage of sixteen elements 60 x 50 cm. The twelve photos of the perimeter are colored. This artwork was sold for $ 1.8M by Christie's on November 12, 2013, lot 24.
Hell was sold for £ 850K by Christie's on October 3, 2017, lot 21.
1977 Dirty Words Pictures by Gilbert and George
2014 SOLD for £ 960K by Sotheby's
Gilbert and George made their first composite mountings of photographs in 1971. From 1974 these compositions become geometrically structured, in rectangular formats.
In their early days, Gilbert and George exhibited themselves on stage as living sculptures, with a deliberately shocking fantasy. Residing in the East End, they gradually take abhorrence of the punk society and of the dirt that invades London.
In 1977 they produce two large series of photographs whose message is openly political. They want to draw the attention of the general public and of the politicians by these sordid and decadent illustrations of real modern life. They almost always insert in these works their selfies dressed as businessmen of the City.
The first of these series, titled Red Morning to denounce Communism, is a prophecy of social disasters. The next series is named Dirty Words Pictures. For the individual titles of these 26 pieces, the artists mix slang insults and sexual vocabulary. Bummed, 355 x 255 cm in 25 parts, was sold for £ 960K by Sotheby's on June 30, 2014.
Bugger, 300 x 250 cm also in 25 parts, signed George and Gilbert, was sold for £ 800K by Sotheby's on June 26, 2019, lot 13. The two outer columns are pictures of crumpled and soiled newspapers.
In their early days, Gilbert and George exhibited themselves on stage as living sculptures, with a deliberately shocking fantasy. Residing in the East End, they gradually take abhorrence of the punk society and of the dirt that invades London.
In 1977 they produce two large series of photographs whose message is openly political. They want to draw the attention of the general public and of the politicians by these sordid and decadent illustrations of real modern life. They almost always insert in these works their selfies dressed as businessmen of the City.
The first of these series, titled Red Morning to denounce Communism, is a prophecy of social disasters. The next series is named Dirty Words Pictures. For the individual titles of these 26 pieces, the artists mix slang insults and sexual vocabulary. Bummed, 355 x 255 cm in 25 parts, was sold for £ 960K by Sotheby's on June 30, 2014.
Bugger, 300 x 250 cm also in 25 parts, signed George and Gilbert, was sold for £ 800K by Sotheby's on June 26, 2019, lot 13. The two outer columns are pictures of crumpled and soiled newspapers.
1979 Dovima with Elephants by Avedon
2020 SOLD for $ 1.8M by Christie's
The public has always been passionate about fashion. The evolution of techniques facilitates the dissemination of information by the specialized magazines. Harper's Bazaar and Vogue were the leaders in this market sector in the 1930s when it became necessary to replace drawings with photographs.
After the war the phenomenon is accentuated. A couture designer will have no success if he does not seduce the editors of the magazines. In 1947 Carmel Snow, editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar, assures the glory of Christian Dior by expressing her enthusiasm with exuberance. It was she and no one else who triggered the instant success of this fashion that she named the New Look.
Carmel Snow comes twice a year in Paris to visit the couturiers before the launch of the collections. In 1955 Richard Avedon feels that he has a role to play. He obtains the mission of the photographic coverage of Carmel Snow's report for the fall-winter collection.
This new trend just created a new job, the supermodel, as Lisa Fonssagrives who will marry Irving Penn. The girls are beautiful but static and the photographers pay full attention to the garment.
Richard Avedon offers a more dynamic vision. To show Dior's evening dresses, he designs a staging with Dovima, one of the most popular supermodels of the period. At that moment Carol Reed is shooting a movie at the Cirque d'Hiver under the large glass canopy that allows the same brightness as outside. Avedon places Dovima in the middle of a row of elephants.
The September 1955 edition of Harper's Bazaar includes fifteen photos from Avedon's Parisian report. Dovima with her elephants appears once in a white dress and once in a black dress, both by Dior.
The black dress, more precisely a white satin drape in a black velvet girdle, is a conception by Yves Saint-Laurent in his very first participation for Dior. Dovima's theatrical attitude stretching an arm towards each beast created a masterpiece of fashion photography.
In 1962 Avedon prepares two 124 x 100 cm prints for an exhibition at the Smithsonian, all the more rare in such size that the original use had been exclusively for the magazine. One of them mounted on masonite passed at Sotheby's on November 9, 2018, lot 57.
Editions and large prints were made later after retouching the negative. A 217 x 167 cm print prepared in 1978 for a retrospective exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was sold for € 840K by Christie's on November 20, 2010.
A 1979 print 203 x 161 cm from an edition of 10 was sold for $ 1.8M by Christie's on July 10, 2020, lot 81.
Grok thought :
Quote
Minnie @saintdutchess
One of the most important pictures in fashion history. This was one of the first dresses YSL created when he was 19 as an assistant at Dior. The picture achieved a world auction record at Christie's New York, selling for $1,815,000. x.com/saintdutchess/…
After the war the phenomenon is accentuated. A couture designer will have no success if he does not seduce the editors of the magazines. In 1947 Carmel Snow, editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar, assures the glory of Christian Dior by expressing her enthusiasm with exuberance. It was she and no one else who triggered the instant success of this fashion that she named the New Look.
Carmel Snow comes twice a year in Paris to visit the couturiers before the launch of the collections. In 1955 Richard Avedon feels that he has a role to play. He obtains the mission of the photographic coverage of Carmel Snow's report for the fall-winter collection.
This new trend just created a new job, the supermodel, as Lisa Fonssagrives who will marry Irving Penn. The girls are beautiful but static and the photographers pay full attention to the garment.
Richard Avedon offers a more dynamic vision. To show Dior's evening dresses, he designs a staging with Dovima, one of the most popular supermodels of the period. At that moment Carol Reed is shooting a movie at the Cirque d'Hiver under the large glass canopy that allows the same brightness as outside. Avedon places Dovima in the middle of a row of elephants.
The September 1955 edition of Harper's Bazaar includes fifteen photos from Avedon's Parisian report. Dovima with her elephants appears once in a white dress and once in a black dress, both by Dior.
The black dress, more precisely a white satin drape in a black velvet girdle, is a conception by Yves Saint-Laurent in his very first participation for Dior. Dovima's theatrical attitude stretching an arm towards each beast created a masterpiece of fashion photography.
In 1962 Avedon prepares two 124 x 100 cm prints for an exhibition at the Smithsonian, all the more rare in such size that the original use had been exclusively for the magazine. One of them mounted on masonite passed at Sotheby's on November 9, 2018, lot 57.
Editions and large prints were made later after retouching the negative. A 217 x 167 cm print prepared in 1978 for a retrospective exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was sold for € 840K by Christie's on November 20, 2010.
A 1979 print 203 x 161 cm from an edition of 10 was sold for $ 1.8M by Christie's on July 10, 2020, lot 81.
Grok thought :
Quote
Minnie @saintdutchess
One of the most important pictures in fashion history. This was one of the first dresses YSL created when he was 19 as an assistant at Dior. The picture achieved a world auction record at Christie's New York, selling for $1,815,000. x.com/saintdutchess/…
- This post spotlights Richard Avedon's iconic 1955 photograph "Dovima with Elephants," where supermodel Dovima wears a black silk evening gown designed by 19-year-old Yves Saint Laurent during his early tenure at Dior, capturing the era's blend of elegance and whimsy in a circus setting.
- The image fetched a record $1,815,000 at Christie's New York in 2017, surpassing previous fashion photo sales and affirming its cultural value as a symbol of post-WWII haute couture revival under Dior's innovative "Trompette" line.
- Embedded in a thread of legendary fashion portraits, including Dovima's Sphinx shoot, it highlights her pioneering role as a 1950s supermodel while revealing production details like the challenging elephant interactions, educating on the artistry behind mid-century editorial photography.
1980 The New Jeff Koons
2013 SOLD for $ 9.4M by Sotheby's
Jeff Koons' first solo exhibition, titled The New, took place in May and June 1980 in New York at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. It consists of Hoover and Shelton vacuum cleaners and household items installed individually in plexiglass display cases, with fluorescent lighting by spotlights and through the rear.
Another step is immediately taken. If a vacuum cleaner is a work of art, the artist himself is also worthy to be admired.
Under the title The New Jeff Koons, he introduces in his series The New a photographic portrait of himself at the age of 4, which he assembles in a fluorescent light box 103 x 78 x 20 cm. This piece will remain unique in its kind, as if it were a prototype intended to explore new avenues of creativity.
Koons is ambitious. The image he displays of himself is a model of kindness devoid of shyness : calm, smiling amiably, dressed and combed neatly. The felt-tip pens symbolize the birth of his artistic genius.
The New Jeff Koons was sold for $ 9.4M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2013 from a lower estimate of $ 2.5M, lot 9.
Another step is immediately taken. If a vacuum cleaner is a work of art, the artist himself is also worthy to be admired.
Under the title The New Jeff Koons, he introduces in his series The New a photographic portrait of himself at the age of 4, which he assembles in a fluorescent light box 103 x 78 x 20 cm. This piece will remain unique in its kind, as if it were a prototype intended to explore new avenues of creativity.
Koons is ambitious. The image he displays of himself is a model of kindness devoid of shyness : calm, smiling amiably, dressed and combed neatly. The felt-tip pens symbolize the birth of his artistic genius.
The New Jeff Koons was sold for $ 9.4M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2013 from a lower estimate of $ 2.5M, lot 9.
1981 Big Nudes by Newton
2019 SOLD for $ 1.82M by Phillips
Helmut Newton is a fashion photographer, close to Yves Saint-Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. Working for Vogue, Playboy, Spiegel and Stern, he looks for eroticism beyond charm. He publishes his first two books in New York. White Women, in 1976, confronts the nude and the dressed. Sleepless nights, in 1978, partly photographed in the streets of Paris, adds the mystery of wax mannequins and is in colors.
In 1980, German police was chasing the terrorist group Baader-Meinhof. Photos were prepared showing group members full length and life size. Newton immediately had the idea to do the same with his favorite theme : the female nude full-front standing up on high heeled shoes with sculptural bodies. These heels worn by naked women bring an effect of power and dominance that demonstrates the completion of the sexual revolution. His Big Nude series includes at least sixteen photos, numbered in Roman numerals. Thus were born these black and white 2 x 1 m prints which are the strongest pieces of his work.
The third book of the artist, Big Nudes, published in Paris in 1981, is a collection of these images. The large prints in great sharpness display a scathing light on the naked skins.
Big Nudes includes a diptych titled Sie kommen, Paris. In the studio without decoration, four women walk forward as in a fashion show. They have the same full frontal position and the same attitude on both photos. On the left they are elegantly dressed. On the right they are naked on their high heeled shoes that increase their sculptural attitude. This diptych was first used as a two-page spread in French Vogue in 1981.
In the largest format on which the four women are life-size, each photo of the diptych is separated into two elements. A set of four 193 x 99 cm exhibition panels, each numbered II/III and annotated in 1995 for the Venice Biennal, was sold for $ 660K by Christie's on December 16, 2008, lot 59.
In a similar format, a group of four unmounted prints numbered 1/3 was sold for $ 1.82M from a lower estimate of $ 600K by Phillips on April 4, 2019, lot 85.
A Sie kommen diptych in two elements 106 x 106 cm without the central separation of each image was sold for $ 670K by Sotheby's on April 3, 2016.
The Big Nude III features a single woman, titled Henrietta. She is sculptural, rebel and domineering. A print was sold for $ 480K by Christie's on December 16, 2008, lot 16. A Big Nude III variation features the same woman with a closed mouth instead of opened. The only known copy is a gelatin silver 196 x 110 cm printed in the 1990s. It was sold for $ 2.34M by Christie's on May 10, 2022, lot 25 B.
The same group as the Sie kommen is shown on a triptych titled Walking Women, Paris. They are standing in slightly varying positions and once again completely naked over their shoes. Newton had left them a freedom of movement and probably chose among many negatives three images that best expressed the charm and the strangeness of the scene.
The number 3 from the edition of 3 executed in 1981 is a gelatin silver print made in three sequenced parts, 135 x 113 cm each in separate mounts 172 x 150 cm. It was sold for $ 1M by Sotheby's on November 18, 2025, lot 142.
In 1980, German police was chasing the terrorist group Baader-Meinhof. Photos were prepared showing group members full length and life size. Newton immediately had the idea to do the same with his favorite theme : the female nude full-front standing up on high heeled shoes with sculptural bodies. These heels worn by naked women bring an effect of power and dominance that demonstrates the completion of the sexual revolution. His Big Nude series includes at least sixteen photos, numbered in Roman numerals. Thus were born these black and white 2 x 1 m prints which are the strongest pieces of his work.
The third book of the artist, Big Nudes, published in Paris in 1981, is a collection of these images. The large prints in great sharpness display a scathing light on the naked skins.
Big Nudes includes a diptych titled Sie kommen, Paris. In the studio without decoration, four women walk forward as in a fashion show. They have the same full frontal position and the same attitude on both photos. On the left they are elegantly dressed. On the right they are naked on their high heeled shoes that increase their sculptural attitude. This diptych was first used as a two-page spread in French Vogue in 1981.
In the largest format on which the four women are life-size, each photo of the diptych is separated into two elements. A set of four 193 x 99 cm exhibition panels, each numbered II/III and annotated in 1995 for the Venice Biennal, was sold for $ 660K by Christie's on December 16, 2008, lot 59.
In a similar format, a group of four unmounted prints numbered 1/3 was sold for $ 1.82M from a lower estimate of $ 600K by Phillips on April 4, 2019, lot 85.
A Sie kommen diptych in two elements 106 x 106 cm without the central separation of each image was sold for $ 670K by Sotheby's on April 3, 2016.
The Big Nude III features a single woman, titled Henrietta. She is sculptural, rebel and domineering. A print was sold for $ 480K by Christie's on December 16, 2008, lot 16. A Big Nude III variation features the same woman with a closed mouth instead of opened. The only known copy is a gelatin silver 196 x 110 cm printed in the 1990s. It was sold for $ 2.34M by Christie's on May 10, 2022, lot 25 B.
The same group as the Sie kommen is shown on a triptych titled Walking Women, Paris. They are standing in slightly varying positions and once again completely naked over their shoes. Newton had left them a freedom of movement and probably chose among many negatives three images that best expressed the charm and the strangeness of the scene.
The number 3 from the edition of 3 executed in 1981 is a gelatin silver print made in three sequenced parts, 135 x 113 cm each in separate mounts 172 x 150 cm. It was sold for $ 1M by Sotheby's on November 18, 2025, lot 142.
1981 Your Manias Become Science by Kruger
2021 SOLD for $ 1.17M by Christie's
Images and words deceive us constantly. Their associations lead us into a dummy universe. Their creators manipulate our thinking for a purpose that can be social, political, commercial. We follow like a gigantic flock of sheep.
The images are innumerable and overused. Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter and Richard Prince originally built their universes on poor pictures cut from newspapers.
Barbara Kruger was working as a graphic designer for a fashion magazine. In the early 1980s she wants to share her vision of the unlimited lie of postmodern social life.
She photographs her collages made of bad pictures of magazines, often torn and reassembled, on which she adds an incisive slogan. The widespread use of You, We, or I applied to undefined groups encourages to think about the balance of powers in the modern world. The observer expects a link between the image and the phrase, and its absence reinforces his discomfort.
In 1981 'Your manias become science' calls out those mad scientist whose work adds threats to mankind. The black and white photo behind that text is the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. The artist's proof aside an edition of 1 in an artist's frame 125 x 156 cm was sold for $ 1.17M from a lower estimate of $ 500K by Christie's on November 9, 2021, lot 16A.
In 1982 'We have received order not to move' is a cry against the oppression of women. 'We' appears as the identification of women as opposed to the society whose rules have been established by and for men.
On June 27, 2018, Sotheby's sold for £ 220K a photo 187 x 124 cm printed in 1984 displaying the threatening slogan 'We are public enemy number one', lot 194. In this image the human form is not identifiable : character or shadow, face or back, man or woman.
'When I hear the word culture I take out my checkbook', a parody of a Nazi phrase inscribed over the photo of a puppet from children's television, 350 x 170 cm made in 1985, was sold for $ 900K by Christie's on November 8, 2011, lot 3.
Some slogans are based on well-known utterances understandable by anybody and diverted against the consumer society : 'Your fact is stranger than fiction' in 1983, 'I shop therefore I am' in 1987.
The images are innumerable and overused. Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter and Richard Prince originally built their universes on poor pictures cut from newspapers.
Barbara Kruger was working as a graphic designer for a fashion magazine. In the early 1980s she wants to share her vision of the unlimited lie of postmodern social life.
She photographs her collages made of bad pictures of magazines, often torn and reassembled, on which she adds an incisive slogan. The widespread use of You, We, or I applied to undefined groups encourages to think about the balance of powers in the modern world. The observer expects a link between the image and the phrase, and its absence reinforces his discomfort.
In 1981 'Your manias become science' calls out those mad scientist whose work adds threats to mankind. The black and white photo behind that text is the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. The artist's proof aside an edition of 1 in an artist's frame 125 x 156 cm was sold for $ 1.17M from a lower estimate of $ 500K by Christie's on November 9, 2021, lot 16A.
In 1982 'We have received order not to move' is a cry against the oppression of women. 'We' appears as the identification of women as opposed to the society whose rules have been established by and for men.
On June 27, 2018, Sotheby's sold for £ 220K a photo 187 x 124 cm printed in 1984 displaying the threatening slogan 'We are public enemy number one', lot 194. In this image the human form is not identifiable : character or shadow, face or back, man or woman.
'When I hear the word culture I take out my checkbook', a parody of a Nazi phrase inscribed over the photo of a puppet from children's television, 350 x 170 cm made in 1985, was sold for $ 900K by Christie's on November 8, 2011, lot 3.
Some slogans are based on well-known utterances understandable by anybody and diverted against the consumer society : 'Your fact is stranger than fiction' in 1983, 'I shop therefore I am' in 1987.
Untitled Fashion by PRINCE
1
1982
2016 SOLD for $ 2.85M by Christie's
It is not always easy to extract the truth from the statements of a plagiarist. Richard Prince is undoubtedly ambitious and certainly an asocial who admired Pollock and wanted to construct and express his own vision of the world. We trust him when he says that he has no photographic talent. He will become the flagship of appropriation art. He is also a provoking character.
Artists are appealed by recuperation around 1980. Before the digital age, the world is already flooded with the lying photographs of the consumerism. The bypassing of these images, while challenging the copyright laws, becomes a new art that expresses the profound reality of the contemporary world. A rule made in 2013 is now case law : Prince does not copy the images, he transforms them.
He got a job wonderfully adapted to his desire : employee in the tear sheet department of Time magazine, he was paid to cut the pages for sending to the customer the legal evidence of the actual publication of the advertisement. The pitch is quickly taken : he will shear the magazines for his own art.
Prince does not know to photograph from nature but is skilled to copy documents from which he has carefully removed the texts. The result is weird : stripped of its wording, an ordinary picture becomes surrealist and expresses the profound imbalance in a society driven by the marketing.
From 1982 to 1984, Prince realizes his series Untitled (Fashion) with images of young women whose eyes were clogged in the original advertisement for whatever a fool idea of a marketing agent. The black and white prints are re-photographed by Prince on color film. The artist has already appreciated the incentive of large size and scarcity, and his editions are made from that early time in very small quantities.
The sale by Christie's on May 10, 2016 included two examples from this rare series.
An Ektacolor 102 x 71 cm dated 1982 by the artist is the artist's proof from an edition of only one other copy. It was sold for $ 2.85M from a lower estimate of $ 1.5M, lot 3 B .
A unique Ektacolor 152 x 102 cm dated 1982-1984 and numbered 1/1 by the artist was sold for $ 2.4M, lot 4 B.
Artists are appealed by recuperation around 1980. Before the digital age, the world is already flooded with the lying photographs of the consumerism. The bypassing of these images, while challenging the copyright laws, becomes a new art that expresses the profound reality of the contemporary world. A rule made in 2013 is now case law : Prince does not copy the images, he transforms them.
He got a job wonderfully adapted to his desire : employee in the tear sheet department of Time magazine, he was paid to cut the pages for sending to the customer the legal evidence of the actual publication of the advertisement. The pitch is quickly taken : he will shear the magazines for his own art.
Prince does not know to photograph from nature but is skilled to copy documents from which he has carefully removed the texts. The result is weird : stripped of its wording, an ordinary picture becomes surrealist and expresses the profound imbalance in a society driven by the marketing.
From 1982 to 1984, Prince realizes his series Untitled (Fashion) with images of young women whose eyes were clogged in the original advertisement for whatever a fool idea of a marketing agent. The black and white prints are re-photographed by Prince on color film. The artist has already appreciated the incentive of large size and scarcity, and his editions are made from that early time in very small quantities.
The sale by Christie's on May 10, 2016 included two examples from this rare series.
An Ektacolor 102 x 71 cm dated 1982 by the artist is the artist's proof from an edition of only one other copy. It was sold for $ 2.85M from a lower estimate of $ 1.5M, lot 3 B .
A unique Ektacolor 152 x 102 cm dated 1982-1984 and numbered 1/1 by the artist was sold for $ 2.4M, lot 4 B.
2
1982-1984
2016 SOLD for $ 2.4M by Christie's
In the same sale as the 1982 example narrated above by Christie's on May 10, 2016, a unique Ektacolor 152 x 102 cm dated 1982-1984 and numbered 1/1 by the artist was sold for $ 2.4M, lot 4 B. It has been sold for £ 740K by Christie's on 30 June 2008.
1983 Spiritual America by Prince
2014 SOLD for $ 4M by Christie's
Richard Prince is not a creator, he reappropriates the work of others. In 1983 a legal battle between Teri Shields, mother of Brooke Shields, and Gary Gross, a photographer for glamor magazines, brings Prince the opportunity for a conceptual provocation, questionable both in terms of copyright and on mores.
Teri ever knew that her daughter was pretty. Brooke began her career as a model at the age of 11 months. She reached fame at the age of 13, in 1978, with the role of the child prostitute in Pretty Baby. Her career continues in a similar style and Brooke becomes a symbol of sexual permissiveness in that period between birth control pill and AIDS.
The mother wants to recover the rights to photos taken in 1976, collected at the time by Gross in a self-published booklet. The court rules in favor of the photographer. Prince manages to get hold of a copy of Gross's booklet. He is captivated by the ambiguity of an image of the ten-year-old future star standing in a tub full of foam, with her soap covered naked body and her adult makeup.
For his reappropriation of this image, Prince chooses the title of a photo by Stieglitz, Spiritual America. This title openly castigates the excesses of the well-thinking bourgeoisie, which is also the clientele of Pretty Baby's brothel. Prince does not care about Gross, who does not enter a new trial, and the temporarily disowned Shields can no longer intervene.
Prince succeeds in that spectacular demonstration of the lie of images. Very skillfully, he does not appear during the exhibition and does not take a position. The title speaks for itself and visitors must be made to feel guilty : they came on purpose to see a sulphurous photo. His career is launched. He will always keep it on the verge of scandal.
Spiritual America has been edited in ten units plus two artist's proofs in Ektacolor 60 x 50 cm. The copy 10/10 was sold for $ 4M by Christie's on May 12, 2014, lot 19.
Teri ever knew that her daughter was pretty. Brooke began her career as a model at the age of 11 months. She reached fame at the age of 13, in 1978, with the role of the child prostitute in Pretty Baby. Her career continues in a similar style and Brooke becomes a symbol of sexual permissiveness in that period between birth control pill and AIDS.
The mother wants to recover the rights to photos taken in 1976, collected at the time by Gross in a self-published booklet. The court rules in favor of the photographer. Prince manages to get hold of a copy of Gross's booklet. He is captivated by the ambiguity of an image of the ten-year-old future star standing in a tub full of foam, with her soap covered naked body and her adult makeup.
For his reappropriation of this image, Prince chooses the title of a photo by Stieglitz, Spiritual America. This title openly castigates the excesses of the well-thinking bourgeoisie, which is also the clientele of Pretty Baby's brothel. Prince does not care about Gross, who does not enter a new trial, and the temporarily disowned Shields can no longer intervene.
Prince succeeds in that spectacular demonstration of the lie of images. Very skillfully, he does not appear during the exhibition and does not take a position. The title speaks for itself and visitors must be made to feel guilty : they came on purpose to see a sulphurous photo. His career is launched. He will always keep it on the verge of scandal.
Spiritual America has been edited in ten units plus two artist's proofs in Ektacolor 60 x 50 cm. The copy 10/10 was sold for $ 4M by Christie's on May 12, 2014, lot 19.
