“Nicole Eisenman: Prince”, the first exhibition in New York focused on the artist’s deep engagement with printmaking in more than 10 years, is now on view at Print Center New York. Prince comprises over 40 works—including rarely seen works and new works shown publicly for the first time—revealing how printmaking has been, and continues to be, a generative and vital space for experimentation within Eisenman’s broader practice. “Eisenman has found an ideal match in the medium of prints,” says Executive Director Judy Hecker. “Her inventiveness reminds us time and again of how artists turn the challenges of printmaking into possibilities for experimentation, expression, and collaboration.”
The exhibition is structured to highlight the artist’s close collaborations with three New York–based print workshops: Harlan & Weaver, Jungle Press, and 10 Grand Press. Known primarily as a painter when the artist began making prints, Eisenman set out in 2011 and 2012 on an intensive exploration into printmaking, first making monoprints on her own and then setting up weekly appointments with these local print shops. Working in close collaboration with the master printers there, Eisenman has developed an expansive body of prints—including lithographs, etchings, woodcuts, and monotypes—that demonstrates the voracious range of references, imagery, and styles for which the artist is known.
Prince also includes several rarely seen and new works. A new resin and fiberglass relief celebrates the interplay between Eisenman’s work in print and her broader practice. Furthermore, new works created in 2022–23 with 10 Grand Press demonstrate how the artist moves fluidly between two- and three-dimensions, combining drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Indeed, sculpture has become a primary medium of Eisenman’s in the last decade. In these surprising explorations, printmaking matrices made from unconventional materials—carved from styrofoam or cast in plaster from a wax-based painting on wood—are displayed as sculptural reliefs alongside their corresponding prints.
Print Center:
535 West 24th Street
New York, New York
