Nicole Eisenman (born 1965) is French-born American artist known for her oil paintings and sculptures. She has been awarded the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

(1996), the

Carnegie Prize The Carnegie Prize is an international art prize awarded by the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It currently consists of a $10,000 cash prize accompanied by a gold medal. History The Carnegie Prize was established in 1896, to ...

(2013), and has thrice been included in the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

(1995, 2012, 2019). On September 29, 2015, she won a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...

award for "restoring the representation of the human form a cultural significance that had waned during the ascendancy of abstraction in the 20th century." Eisenman lives in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

Nicole Eisenman, Foghorn Hits the Road, 2007, Oil on canvas, 14

Biography

Nicole Eisenman was born in 1965 in

Verdun Verdun (, , , ; official name before 1970 ''Verdun-sur-Meuse'') is a large city in the Meuse department in Grand Est, northeastern France. It is an arrondissement of the department. Verdun is the biggest city in Meuse, although the capital ...

, France where her father was stationed as an army psychiatrist. She is of German-Jewish descent; her great-grandmother was Esther Hamerman, a Polish-born painter. In 1970, Eisenman's family moved from France to

Scarsdale, New York Scarsdale is a town and village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The Town of Scarsdale is coextensive with the Village of Scarsdale, but the community has opted to operate solely with a village government, one of several village ...

, where she spent her childhood."Even the Art Museums Can't Escape Her Barbs"
New York Times, Retrieved 7 September 2014. She attended the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

, graduating with a B.F.A in painting in 1987. She then moved to New York City. Between 2003 and 2009, Eisenman taught at

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic ...

Annandale-on-Hudson Annandale-on-Hudson is a hamlet in Dutchess County, New York, United States, located in the Hudson Valley town of Red Hook, across the Hudson River from Kingston. The hamlet consists mainly of the Bard College campus. Municipal services Emerge ...

."Nicole Eisenman"
2013 Carnegie International, Retrieved 11 August 2014.

Work

Eisenman's figurative oil paintings often toy with themes of sexuality, comedy, and caricature."Eisenmann"
, Kunsthalle Zurich, 11 August 2014. Though she is known for her paintings, the artist also creates installations, drawings, etchings, lithography, monotypes, woodcuts, and sculptures. With A.L. Steiner, she is the co-founder of the queer/feminist curatorial initiative Ridykeulous."Readykeulous by Ridykeulous: This is What Liberation Feels Like™"
CAM, Retrieved 13 September 2014. Eisenman's work was included in the 2022 exhibition ''Women Painting Women'' at the

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...

Sculpture

Eisenman also works in creating whimsical sculptures that have been shown at the 58th Venice Biennale, 2017

Skulptur Projekte Münster Skulptur Projekte Münster (English: Sculpture Projects Münster) is an exhibition of sculptures in public places in the town of Münster (Germany). Held every ten years since 1977, the exhibition shows works of invited international artists for ...

, and the 2019

. Eisenman began working on ''Sketch for a Fountain'' in 2012, a bronze piece acquired by the Nasher Sculpture Center in 2019. The acquisition was funded by the Kaleta A. Doolin Acquisitions Fund for Women Artists and the Green Family Collection.

Exhibitions

* ''Nicole Eisenman'',

Kunsthalle Zürich The Kunsthalle Zürich is a contemporary art exhibition centre in Zurich, Switzerland. It is located on Limmatstrasse, near the city centre. A number of temporary exhibitions are organized each year. In 2014 Daniel Baumann replaced Beatrix Ruf ...

(2007) * ''Matrix 248'',

Berkeley Art Museum The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...

(2013) * ''Dear Nemesis, Nicole Eisenman 1993–2013'',

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is an art museum for contemporary art, located in St. Louis, Missouri. Known informally as the CAM St. Louis, the museum is located at 3750 Washington Boulevard in the Grand Center Arts District. The buildin ...

(2014). * ''Dear Nemesis: Nicole Eisenman 1993–2013'',

Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia The Institute of Contemporary Art or ICA is a contemporary art museum in Philadelphia. The museum is associated with the University of Pennsylvania, and is located on its campus. The Institute is one of the country's leading museums dedicated to e ...

(2014). *
Masterpieces & Curiosities: Nicole Eisenman’s Seder
' (2015),

The Jewish Museum The Jewish Museum is an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in the former Felix M. Warburg House, along Museum Mile on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The first Jewish museum in the Unit ...

* ''Nicole Eisenman: Al-ugh-ories'',

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...

(2016) * ''Nicole Eisenman: Dark Light'', Secession, Vienna, Austria (2017) *''Baden Baden Baden,'' Staatliche Kunsthalle Bade-Baden (2019) *''Nicole Eisenman: Sturm und Drang'', The Contemporary Austin, Austin *''Nicole Eisenman: Giant Without a Body'', Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway

Recognition

Eisenman has been awarded numerous grants and prizes including the

(1996), the

(2013), the

Anonymous Was a Woman Award The Anonymous Was A Woman Award is a grant program for women artists who are over 40 years of age, in part to counter sexism in the art world. It began in 1996 in direct response to the National Endowment for the Arts' decision to stop funding in ...

(2014) and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant (1995). She was also the recipient of a 2015 MacArthur Fellowship. Also in 2015, she was named as one of ''

The Forward ''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ' ...

'' 50.

Collections

The artist's work can be found in a number of institutions, including: *

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York *

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...

, Minneapolis *

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, New York *

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's o ...

*Nasher Sculpture Center

Art market

Eisenman is represented by

Hauser & Wirth Hauser & Wirth is a Swiss contemporary and modern art gallery. History Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth, and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by co-president Marc Payot. In 2020, Ewan Venters was ap ...

(since 2019), Anton Kern, and

Vielmetter Los Angeles Vielmetter Los Angeles (formerly Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects) is a contemporary art gallery founded in 2000 by Susanne Vielmetter. The gallery is located in downtown Los Angeles. History Susanne Vielmetter launched her first gallery i ...

. She previously worked with Galerie Barbara Weiss.

Personal life

Eisenman is a lesbian. In a 2016 interview with ''The New York Times'' Eisenman said of her

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...

, "I’m

gender fluid Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...

, but I use the “she” pronoun. I believe in the radicality of stretching the definition of what 'she' is." Eisenman uses both "she/her" and "they/them" pronouns.

Bibliography

* ''Nicole Eisenman: Behavior'' (Rice Gallery, 1998) * ''Nicole Eisenman: Selected works 1993–2003'' (Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 2003) * ''Nicole Eisenman: Selected Works 1994–2004'' ed. Victor Mathieu (Walther König, 2008) * ''Nicole Eisenman: The Way We Weren't'' (Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, 2010) * ''Nicole Eisenman'' ed.

Beatrix Ruf Beatrix Ruf (born 1960, Singen, Germany) is a German art curator and art advisor who held the position of director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam between November 2014 and October 2017. Formerly she was director of the Kunsthalle Zurich. She i ...

(

JRP-Ringier JRP, Ringier, formerly JRP Editions, is a Swiss publisher of high-quality books on contemporary art. Founded by Lionel Bovier in Zurich, Switzerland, the company has more than 400 titles in active distribution worldwide, including artists’ ...

, 2011) * ''Parkett'' no. 91 (

Parkett Parkett was an international magazine specializing in art. The magazine ceased publication in Summer 2017 with its 100th issue and now continues online as a time capsule and archive with some 270 in-depth artists portraits, artists documents, newsl ...

Verlag, 2012) * ''Nicole Eisenman: Dear Nemesis, 1993–2013'' (

/Walther König, 2014)

References

External links

Nicole Eisenman and David Humphrey
''

Bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the Exothermic process, exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-t ...

''
Nicole Eisenman in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art

Nicole Eisenman at the Carnegie International
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eisenman, Nicole 1965 births Living people Rhode Island School of Design alumni Feminist artists 20th-century American painters LGBT artists from the United States Lesbian artists American women painters Painters from New York (state) Bard College faculty Scarsdale High School alumni 20th-century American women artists MacArthur Fellows 21st-century American painters 21st-century American women artists Jewish American artists American women academics 21st-century American Jews Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters