RICHARD PRINCE (B. 1949)

"The image of the cowboy is so familiar in American iconology that it has become almost invisible through its normality. And yet the cowboy is also the most sacred and masklike of cultural figures. In both a geographical and cultural sense, a cowboy is an image of endurance itself, a stereotypical symbol of American cinema. He is simultaneously the wanderer and the mythological symbol of social mobility. Even today, the image of the cowboy has not lost its luster.

...Of all of Prince's art, the Cowboy works are Prince's own mask--his self-portrait as a regular guy. In other words, as embodiments of "untruth," they are the most truthful. Or, as Prince might say, they are the most "convincing"; picture-perfect dissimulations" (R. Brooks, "Spiritual America: No Holds Barred," exh. cat. Richard Prince, 1992, p. 95).