Nicole Eisenman (b. 1965)

The subject of a recent acclaimed museum retrospective at the New Museum, New York, Nicole Eisenman’s work is firmly rooted in the figurative. Taking in references from the tradition of history painting, Socialist Realist murals of the 1930s, caricatures and visual puns, the artist has remarked: ‘when you can’t think of what to draw, draw a head’. Delicately alternating line and tone in a printing technique which produces only a single imprint, these two Untitled works, lots 205 and 206, showcase Eisenman’s skills as a printmaker. The minimal imprints and gestures on the expanse of white sheet allow the artist to explore her characters more intimately: themes such as loneliness and isolation, and gender fluidity, come to the fore.