Richard Prince | Naked Nurses

Richard Prince

Naked Nurses

New York City USA: JMc & GHB Editions, 2006

[unpaginated], 16 x 11 cm., softcover

Edition of 1000

Richard Prince's Nurse Paintings debuted in 2003 at Barbara Gladstone Galleries to mixed response. Many of the works went unsold, with prices in the range of fifty to sixty thousand dollars. The paintings have subsequently gone on to become Prince's highest selling works on the secondary market, accounting for all of his top ten auction results, besting Untitled [Cowboy] (which Time Magazine called one of the "Top 100 most influential images of all time"), the Marlboro Man, Jokes and other signature works. 

In June of this year, Runaway Nurse sold for over twelve million dollars at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. 

The Nurse Paintings were inspired by the type of cheap pulp fiction romance novels that were sold at newsstands, with titles like Surfer Nurse, Naughty Nurse, Millionaire Nurse, and Dude Ranch Nurse (the latter of which appeared as a Sonic Youth album cover). 

This artist book mimics the format of those pulpy titles, but with considerably more graphic content. Purportedly found images of nurses from 1960s and 1970s amateur pornography, it's unclear how many of these women were involved in the nursing profession, or even were intended to depict nurses (they are certainly out of uniform). 

In addition to the 'trade' edition of 1000, there was also a deluxe version released. It featured a signed copy of the book in an orange linen portfolio housing a signed photograph of a nurse on a sports car (signed by the model). A copy recently sold at auction for $13,200 US.