Penelope in the Pit, 1993
Information about the artwork
- MaterialWatercolor on paper
- Dimensions127 x 151 cm
- Year of acquisition2022
- Inventory numberUAB 1299
- On viewCurrently not exhibited
- Copyright© Nicole Eisenman. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
More about the artwork
In this drawing, Nicole Eisenman stages the cartoon character Penelope Pitstop—a car-racing beauty from the cartoon universe of the Hanna-Barbera animation studio. “Seated perkily and inorganically in her pink racing car and clutching her striped parasol while her vehicle is expertly serviced by a team of muscular and intent dykes”—this is how the artist Nicola Tyson describes it. The drawing is a study of a mural of the same title that Eisenman painted directly onto the wall in 1993 for her first solo exhibition at the off-space Trial BALLOON in New York, which was founded by Tyson. The original work no longer exists, but the drawing preserves the idea of creating a lesbian counterimage to the otherwise male-dominated hero myths of the US animation world.
Nicole Eisenman: What Happened, The Abolitionists in the Park & Penelope in the Pit
untilThe film “What Happened: The Movie” (2023) was created especially for the exhibition “Nicole Eisenman: What Happened” at Museum Brandhorst. From the 1990s onward, Eisenman created numerous murals in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Utrecht, and Vienna, which disappeared after some time despite their elaborate production. The artist Ryan McNamara was commissioned to give these works new life by means of animation based on the available archival material. Two works by Eisenman are also on display: a drawing titled “Penelope in the Pit” (1993) from the Brandhorst Collection and a reproduction of Eisenman’s monumental and political painting “The Abolitionists in the Park” (2020–21), the ori [...]
