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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Identification and Creation

Object Number
2006.10.1-12
People
Richard Prince, American (Panama Canal Zone born 1949)
Arber & Son Editions, American
I. C. Editions, Inc.
Title
Untitled (Portfolio of Twelve Prints)
Other Titles
Series/Book Title: Untitled (Portfolio of Twelve Prints)
Classification
Prints
Work Type
portfolio
Date
1991
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/11300

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Twelve lithographs housed in a black cloth box with embroidered "skull bunny"
Technique
Lithograph
Dimensions
box: 41.8 x 30.7 cm (16 7/16 x 12 1/16 in.)
sheet: 38 x 28 cm (14 15/16 x 11 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: each sheet signed on verso in graphite pencil: RP
  • stamp: lower left of colophon, compression: chop of Arber & Son Editions
  • inscription: verso of each sheet, graphite pencil, signed, in artist's hand: RP
  • inscription: colophon, graphite pencil, signed, in artist's hand: 24/26 R Prince 1991

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

Edition
24/26

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund
Copyright
© Richard Prince / I. C. Editions, Inc.
Accession Year
2006
Object Number
2006.10.1-12
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Commentary
As in much of his other work, Richard Prince explores issues of masculinity in this portfolio of twelve lithographs. Each print comprises a smattering of texts and images: some fragmentary, some fully realized, some drawn on the stone, some transferred from other sources. Prince's hand-written texts tell jokes, the kinds of raunchy, yet classic jokes allegedly told among men. The prints are an extension of his painting practice. In the late 1980s, Prince began a series of joke paintings that critics have related to the humor and cartoon imagery featured in men's magazines like Playboy. In fact, the portfolio box that contains the prints the prints is decorated with a Playboy bunny on its cover. Yet although Prince deploys such iconic signifiers of masculinity as the bunny and dirty traveling salesmen jokes, the picture of masculinity he conjures is a confusing questioning one. In fact even the Playboy bunny is manipulated-it's given a dangerous-looking set of teeth. Included among the texts are affirmations of male homosexuality, certainly a subject taboo in men's porn magazines. The print publisher Susan Inglett claims that the drawings for the prints were made after prince and his wife separated and he was engaged in a homosexual affair. Whatever his personal stake in the imagery is, the prints examine masculinity in a sensitive, smart, and unusual way.

Publication History

  • [Unidentified article], Print Collector's Newsletter (January - February 1992), Vol. XXII No. 6, p. 213

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Verification Level

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