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.
