Richard Prince

Nurse Elsa

Nurse Elsa, a part of Richard Prince’s Nurse series, is an example of the artist’s practice of complicating appropriated images. Prince has reproduced, on a monumental scale, the cover of a 1968 dime store novel titled Conflict for Nurse Elsa. The artist partially obscures much of the original cover illustration with washes applied in broad, gestural passages of gauzy white or lurid pink and purple.

The effect is both haunting and alluring. The nurse’s mask, non-existent in the source material, eerily extends over her eyes, introducing an element of ambiguity. Although traces of kitsch-y glamour remain visible beneath Prince’s brushstrokes, his nurse’s identity, as well as her intentions, are concealed, leaving the viewer with unsettling questions. Is she benevolent or malicious?

This aura of mystery, Prince maintains, is seductive because it balances life and death.

“Isn’t that why we find nurses sexy,” he muses, “because they embody this ultimate contradiction?”