Richard Prince is known as one of America’s controversial artist due to his technique in art appropriation of popular and cultural photographs. In the 1980s, he made a series which all attained a similar title: Untitled (Cowboy), a set of images re-photographed from Marlboro advertisement campaigns. The series portrayed a reoccurring subject matter; A Cowboy. During the 20th century, cowboys were perceived as a masculine icon in America and Prince highlighted that ideation through his photographs. A standout of his photographs was a re-photograph from Jim Braddy’s photography for the Marlboro company which was released in 1989.
Emotional impact
Prince chooses to portray his 1989 Cowboy photograph in an obvious elaborate manner, the size. Approximately 50 x 75 inches, the framed photographed consumes the audience with a luscious and grand piece of art. However, when observing it, your focal is drawn to the cowboy on the horse and the rest later. Prince turns his focus so that you could not tell if it came right from a magazine. He wanted to dissect the depiction of people fantasizing masculinity in America from the images of heroic cowboys in the Old West. The original photography from the advertisements gave presumptions to consumers that by smoking the Marlboro brand cigarettes, you can be the cowboy, but he has stripped away that
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His works reflects as well as challenges the American culture. The photographs from the advertisement campaigns show handsome cowboys in a clean environment to increase the sales of a toxic product. His response to the advertisement were by appropriating the fraudulent message that constructs popular culture. Just as the false message that was imbedded on those advertisements, Prince had taken that subject matter out of that environment and unveils the other side of American