C harged by irreverent content and sardonic tone, drawings by Nicole Eisenman gained recognition in the early 1990s. Her characteristically dark humor is on full display in the imagery and style of the present work, Talk Show, from 1993. The work depicts a larger than life figure, seated on a stool not quite big enough for large limbs, at the mercy of many rows of audience members. One woman stands up from her seat, pointing toward the stage accusingly. The murky, monochromatic hue of the acrylic paint illustrates this scene almost like a surrealist nightmare, replete with humiliation and discomfort.

Heralded as a leading figurative artist of the past several decades, Eisenman has participated in the 1995, 2012, and 2019 Whitney Biennials, as well as the 2019 Venice Biennale. She is a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2018. Her works are in the collections of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Kunsthalle Zürich, among others.