Richard Prince was born in 1949 in the Panama Canal Zone and lives and works in upstate New York. Best known as a pioneer of Appropriation Art, he began creating works based on various pop culture images taken from magazines and newspapers, often re-photographing and manipulating the images in his own works. Richard Prince was born in 1949 in the Panama Canal Zone and lives and works in upstate New York. Best known as a pioneer of Appropriation Art, he began creating works based on various pop culture images taken from magazines and newspapers, often re-photographing and manipulating the images using a repertoire of strategies (such as blurring, cropping, and enlarging) to intensify their original artifice. Prince has redefined the concepts of authorship, ownership, and aura while evolving a unique signature filled with echoes of other signatures that are unquestionably his own. Copywriting puns, literal or visual, became the basis for Prince's language, as he developed the rephotograph – a new form of photographic image, redone in order to answer the latest cultural or social context. The majority of his works include scandalous subjects that have provoked controversy around issues of copyright in the art world. Prince's has been the subject of major survey exhibitions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1992), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1993), Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2001), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2007), and Serpentine Gallery, London (2008). His artworks are in major international museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum, New York; Tate Britain, London; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago among others.

Richard Prince

Perennially provocative, Richard Prince has blazed new trails for photography with his explorations of appropriation, identity, and the meaning of images in a mass-media culture.

Richard Prince’s “Together” series, a portfolio of 18 collages, combines offset lithography, hand-cutting, painting, and assemblage to explore themes of modern eroticism and voyeurism. The series merges explicit magazine images with Prince’s own surreal illustrations, featuring abstract and cartoonish elements that blur the line between reality and fantasy. These collages often present male and female figures intertwined, enhanced by reflective or surreal details—such as extra feet sprouting from a figure—making familiar imagery uncanny and challenging typical viewer expectations. Prince’s work, known for questioning originality and authorship, critiques American culture by appropriating icons, consumer advertisements, and pulp aesthetics. ​​This series, like much of his art, highlights cultural narratives around desire and the erotic, echoing his broader focus on themes of identity, consumerism, and fame. A prominent figure in the Pictures Generation, Prince’s work, including his well-known Marlboro Man rephotographs, reflects his belief in the convergence of art and collected cultural artefacts, transforming commonplace images into provocative statements on American life and values.

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“ By appropriating images from popular culture, I aim to expose the manipulation and commodification of art. „

—Richard Prince