John Currin

Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York

Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art, Cleveland

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Seattle, Donald Young Gallery, John Currin, 1995

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Wild Walls, 1995, p. 52 and 111, illustrated

Berlin, Contemporary Fine Arts, Answered Prayers, 1996

Kara Vander Weg, Rose Dergan, Eds., John Currin, New York 2006, p. 138, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals a minute speck of paint loss to the top right corner tip and a further pin-prick sized speck of loss 10 centimetres above the lower left corner on the overturn edge. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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Throughout his career to date, John Currin has created paintings that have consistently challenged the conventions of portraiture, creating a body of work that examines and subverts the traditions of the ‘male gaze’ and gender politics. At the beginning of his career, Currin championed a traditional form of painting at a time when such a style was firmly out of fashion within a New York art scene that advocated novel techniques and practices, and has continued to produce works that celebrate and articulate the myriad possibilities of oil on canvas in defiance of the vicissitudes of the fast-moving contemporary art scene. Aside from his remarkable technical facility, Currin succeeds in challenging the viewers of his works by frequently adding elements of the grotesque and caricature to his portraits, imbuing his painting with multiple levels of interpretation and allusion: inspiration is taken from a variety of Old Master painters as well as more recent commercial source imagery. Robert Rosenblum has talked of the multiplicity of sensation and meaning evoked within Currin’s painting, making reference to the occasionally darker aspects that exist within the portraits: “Currin looks at the crumbling myths and icons of twentieth century America, revealing, as in a warped looking-glass, their bizarre surface and their dark underside” (Robert Rosenblum, ‘John Currin and the American Grotesque,’ Exhibition Catalogue, Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art (and travelling), John Currin, 2003, p. 21).

Painted in 1995, Innocent, Loser, Prophet is a relative rarity within Currin’s oeuvre in that its subject is male: known primarily during this period for paintings which depicted a sometimes cruelly caricatured version of womanhood, the artist here turns his attention to another element of somewhat ambiguous gender. Whilst the figure luxuriates in a profusion of bearded facial hair and other attributes of masculinity, his eyes are surrounded by thick clusters of lashes that result in a curiously feminine appearance. Somehow emasculated, the figure gazes out towards the viewer, positioned against an opulent blue background in which swirls of luxurious pigment echo the texture of the subject’s bare skin. In its presentation of a figure neither undeniably masculine nor wholly feminine, Innocent, Loser, Prophet queries conventional notions of sexuality and gender definitions in a highly traditional painterly language, whilst seemingly referencing the artist’s belief that: “The mystique of painting is both very macho and of course as elegant as bubble bath - it can be as luxuriating as you care to be. The studio really is my boudoir; that’s something I’ve always cherished about painting - it’s a completely ambisexual atmosphere…” (the artist cited in: A. M. Homes, ‘V. F. Portrait, John Currin,’ Vanity Fair, September 2011, n.p.). Innocent, Loser, Prophet ultimately stands as a highly accomplished example of contemporary portraiture: a fascinating painting that causes the viewer to re-examine pre-conceived ideals about the very concept and role of gender itself.