Richard Prince Value: Top Prices Paid at Auction

The highest and second-highest auction results for Richard Prince were achieved by Runaway Nurse (2005-06), which sold for £5.9 million in May 2016 and then £7.5 million in June 2021 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. This large-scale mixed media work, measuring almost 2 x 3 metres, perfectly exemplifies Prince's signature appropriation technique: transforming a pulp romance novel cover into fine art through enlargement, digital manipulation, and gestural paint application. The heavily worked surface reveals Prince's physical engagement with the image, as layers of paint both obscure and enhance the underlying material. The timing of the 2021 sale during the global pandemic gave the masked nurse imagery newfound cultural relevance, contributing to its exceptional performance and demonstrating how contextual shifts can dramatically impact the market value of conceptual art.

Nurse Of Greenmeadow (2002) achieved this impressive result at Christie's New York in May 2014. The painting emerged during the initial development of the Nurse series in 2002, when Prince first began experimenting with pulp romance novel covers as source material. The splash of red around her clasped hands adds a slightly ominous, defensive tone to the piece. Coming after his Jokes and Cowboy series, the Nurse paintings represented a new direction in Prince's examination of American cultural archetypes and gendered representation, and coincided with his move from New York City to upstate New York, where he established his studio in a former hunting lodge that later became home to his extensive rare book collection.

Selling at Sotheby's in November 2024, Nurse on Trial (2005) is the most recent installment on this list, highlighting the continued market interest in Prince's Nurse paintings nearly two decades after their creation. The work’s title's legal connotation adds a unique layer of meaning for Prince, suggesting judgment and scrutiny - themes Prince has explored throughout his career, particularly as his appropriation methods have faced legal challenges. Unlike in many of Prince’s other Nurse paintings, this nurse is not partially obscured by translucent paint, adding to the stark, almost theatrical contrast between her white uniform and the deep green background. Contrasts between the subject and the background are integral to all of Prince’s works, however, to emphasise themes of identity, anonymity, and the tension between revealing and concealing.

Park Avenue Nurse (2002) sold at Sotheby's New York in November 2019. This mixed media work, combining inkjet printing with acrylic paint on canvas, has an even more obscured and smoky finish to Prince’s other Nurses. Her mask is drawn up to her eyes, and the text of the title is almost illegible. The title itself alludes to wealth and status, adding another layer to Prince's exploration of American fantasies and class dynamics - is the raised mask a comment on the rank of ‘nurse’ in such a prestigious and socially elite neighbourhood? It was created during the same highly productive period as several other top-selling Nurse paintings, and demonstrates Prince's consistent formal approach while exploring different character archetypes from pulp fiction.

Another work from 2002, Nurse Elsa (2002) achieved this result at Christie's New York in November 2016. The work exemplifies Prince's interest in the female protagonist as a cultural symbol - of desire, class, and beauty - anonymous behind her mask yet with the individuality afforded by a name: Elsa. The just-visible title of the appropriated book cover, Conflict For Nurse Elsa, and Prince’s deliberate decision to shorten the title is just one example of how open-ended interpretations of Prince’s Nurse series have been left. Without firm context, the true statements of the works are left for the viewer to decide.

This work sold out of the Halsey Minor Collection at Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, in May 2010. This painting connects to Prince's longstanding fascination with Hollywood and entertainment culture, themes he has explored since his early career in the 1970s. The work, like most of Prince’s Nurse series, was based on a Jane Converse novel, with the male suitor featured on the book’s cover removed with opaque paint - in this case, black paint. It was created two years after Prince’s initial Nurse paintings and, therefore, represents Prince's continued engagement with the series as it evolved. Although the "#4" designation indicates further Nurse In Hollywood artworks, the true number is not clear.

Overseas Nurse (2002) achieved this price at Sotheby's London in July 2008, marking one of the earliest major sales from the Nurse series. The painting uses the garish colour palette of Prince’s early Nurses and the recurring motif of the surgical mask, which serves both aesthetic and conceptual purposes by obscuring the nurse's identity while emphasising the mouth as a site of desire and danger - themes that run throughout Prince's oeuvre, beyond his Nurse series. This early sale came as Prince was experiencing a major institutional breakthrough with his Guggenheim retrospective the previous year, an exhibition that brought together his various series examining American cultural mythologies and significantly elevated his status in the art world.

Navy Nurse (2004) sold at Christie's New York in July 2020. This moody work has a darker setting than Prince’s other Nurses, with dramatic, almost cinematic lighting that creates a noir-like atmosphere. Prince's handling of paint is particularly noteworthy here - areas of thick impasto contrast with fluid, translucent washes, creating a surface that rewards close inspection, revealing elements of text beneath. The military reference in the title and the brief section of visible blurb connect to Prince's broader interest in American archetypes and institutional symbolism, themes he also explored in his groundbreaking Cowboy series of the 1980s, where he rephotographed Marlboro cigarette advertisements. It’s unusual provenance, having been acquired directly from the artist by the collector who then sold it in 2020, adds to the work’s sense of mystery.

Nurse Barclay's Dilemma (2002) sold at Christie's New York in November 2019. This Nurse piece employs both Prince’s typical garish colour scheme and neutral tones that have a hazy, dreamlike quality that complements the figure’s pose and the psychological tension suggested by the title. This complexity is typical of Prince's approach, which often invites viewers to project their own interpretations onto familiar yet ambiguous imagery. The dilemma referenced in the title also serves as a meta-commentary on Prince's own controversial position within the art world, where his appropriation techniques continually challenge legal and ethical boundaries of authorship.

Completing the top 10 list is Island Nurse (2002), which sold at Christie's New York in November 2018. Its striking colour combination intensifies Prince’s pulp fiction aesthetic while transforming it into something more psychologically complex. The exotic suggestion of the "Island" setting, like in Overseas Nurse (2002), deliberately plays into fantasy narratives and colonial tropes that Prince continually appropriates and subverts. The piece brilliantly exemplifies Prince's career-long fascination with how desire is packaged and sold in popular culture - a theme he has explored across various series from his Girlfriends motorcycle images to his controversial Instagram appropriations that continued to test the boundaries of copyright and authorship in the digital age.