Richard Prince — 1970 · ACL-007
A frontal face, framed by voluminous hair rendered as a cloud of tight dots, emerges from a simple turtleneck sketched in outline. Heavy eyelids, a slightly asymmetrical gaze and a half-open mouth give the sitter a presence at once weary and insistent. As in Malcolm, Prince sets a face saturated with graphite against a garment reduced to its line, and inscribes in capitals, at the foot of the sheet, the sitter's name and the date: “Charles '70”.
The companion piece to Malcolm, made the same year and on the same principle, this portrait attests to a practice of figure drawing that Prince pursued alongside his appropriation work, and which remains one of the least known sides of his output. Together, the two sheets form a coherent set from his earliest years.
