Butched Up Nurse Paintings: Richard Prince, Eden Rock

a three row grid of 18 richard prince paintings, each depicting the rugged or rough lower half of a male figure in some kind of peril or post-apocalyptic conundrum, with everything else painted over in messy brushy white. for sale at christie's in february 2026
Richard Prince, Eden Rock, 2005-06, eighteen acrylic on canvas, each 24 x 30 in., at Christie’s

The Edlis Neesons are selling a set of eighteen Richard Prince Eden Rock paintings at Christie’s. They’re overpainted appropriations of the covers of a pulp sci-fi book series called Deathlands, sort of butched up, post-apocalyptic nurse paintings. But greg.org readers may know them for their starring role in Eden Rock: The Movie, Prince’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi concept set in St. Bart’s. These Deathlands paintings were one tribe in Eden Rock; the Canal Zone Rastas were another; and the pin-up girls (from a Taschen book) scattered throughout the Canal Zone paintings were a third. [Fun fact: Eden Rock was the movie/pitch. Prince’s working title for these paintings, which read somewhere between a moodboard and a storyboard, was In My Movie.]

a painting mostly brushy white overpaint, except for the lower half of a male figure on the right edge, in torn jeans, with a massive axe, one foot on a human skull that has daisies growing out of its eye socket, it's' a painting by richard prince based on the cover of a deathlands novel by james axler
Richard Prince, Eden Rock, 2005-06, DL 45, inv. #455, 24 x 30 in., supposedly acrylic on canvas, one of 18 at Christie’s 26 Feb 2026

Three of Edlis/Neeson’s paintings were begun in 2005, and all were completed in 2006. Of those three, this one with the skull has the lowest inventory number, so maybe it was first? Prince was on it for a while, though; sixteen 0thers in the series that Prince showed at the actual Eden Rock Hotel over Christmas/New Year’s 2007-08 were listed as 2006-07. [FWIW, in an Eden Rock inventory filed in the Cariou trial, the walk-in price was $150,000, and all sixteen had buyers listed. At least one re-sold—maybe by David Ganek—for $87,500 in 2020. Christie’s estimates the Edlis Neesons’ set at $500-700,000.]

the cover of deathlands, skyfall by james axler is a painting of the lower half of of a macho man's body in torn jeans, with an axe, a bowie knife, boots, a skull at his feet with flowers growing out of the eye sockets, in a brown wasteland
Deathlands 45, Starfall, cover

I thought that Canal Zone connection would be the most interesting thing about these paintings, but I’m turning out to be wrong. From the low-res images I’d seen, I’d always assumed these were paint-for-hire copies of the covers, which he then whited out by hand. But they’re stroke-for-stroke matches, which means they’d have to be inkjets. Except unlike the nurse paintings, they’re listed only as acrylic, and they’re on pre-stretched canvases. Also, Prince’s painting contains elements cropped from the cover. So either Prince extrapolated, or he was working from the original painting. Around the same time, Prince created a series called Untitled (Originals), which paired a pulp novel with its original cover art. Maybe the Eden Rock paintings are similar. In any case, they may not be what they say, and they are definitely not what they seem.

Lot 362, 26 Feb 2026: Richard Prince, Eden Rock, $500-700k [update: sold for $500k hammer, $635,000 all in] [christies]
Eden Rock paintings [richardprince.com]
Previously, related, 2011: “The movie is called Eden Rock…”