Artwork
Untitled
Untitled is an ink drawing by Richard Prince. It dates from 1999 and is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
About this work
Overview
Created in 1999, this work by American conceptual artist Richard Prince consists of synthetic polymer paint and silkscreened ink applied to paper.
Created in 1999, this work by American conceptual artist Richard Prince consists of synthetic polymer paint and silkscreened ink applied to paper. The piece is largely white, punctuated by stark black forms—a stick‑figure with outstretched arms, three floating ovals, and a rudimentary flower‑like sketch with a face. The background is marked by loose, scribbled marks that give the surface a textured, erased quality.
Subject & Meaning
The composition juxtaposes minimal figurative elements with abstract marks, inviting consideration of how simple symbols can convey notions of presence and absence. The stick‑figure’s gesture and the floating ovals suggest a fleeting, almost cinematic moment, while the flower‑face adds a whimsical, anthropomorphic touch. Together they echo Prince’s interest in the visual language of advertising and mass media, probing the relationship between everyday imagery and personal identity.
Technique & Style
Prince combines hand‑drawn ink with silkscreened applications, allowing the crisp black silhouettes to contrast sharply against the uneven, almost eroded white ground. The use of synthetic polymer paint provides a flat, matte finish, while the silkscreen process introduces a reproducible quality that references commercial printing methods. The overall aesthetic aligns with his broader practice of recontextualizing familiar visual motifs through a pared‑down, graphic vocabulary.
History & Provenance
Emerging from the 1980s East Village scene, Prince continued to explore appropriation in the late 1990s, and this drawing forms part of that trajectory. Since its creation, the work has been exhibited in several institutional contexts, reflecting its role in documenting the artist’s ongoing dialogue with popular culture. Its provenance traces back to the artist’s studio, moving through private collections before entering public holdings.
Context
The piece belongs to a period when Prince was intensively reworking images sourced from advertisements, magazines, and other mass‑media outlets. By reducing these sources to basic geometric and figurative forms, he foregrounds the mechanisms of visual consumption prevalent in late‑20th‑century America. The work thus functions as a visual inquiry into the saturation of consumer imagery and its impact on perception.
Artist & collection
Artist
Richard Prince (born August 6, 1949) is an American conceptual artist and pop artist who rose to prominence in the 1980s in the East Village, Manhattan.
