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 geogrphical and cultural sense, a cowboy is an image of endurance itself, a sterotypical 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" --Rosetta Brooks, 'Spiritual America,' 1992.