Some objects are designed to be used. Others are made to be felt. Gabriela Hearst’s original Nina bag, hand-painted by artist Adam Pendleton exists somewhere between the two: part sculpture, part love letter, part act of preservation. Curated and published by Sharon Coplan (@_sharoncoplan), each of the 25 unique pieces is hand-painted, signed, and entirely one of a kind, realized on ivory duchess satin with Pendleton's unmistakable visual language moving across every surface with quiet intention. The handle alone took months — built toward a fade with no beginning and no end, something Hearst describes, simply, as stardust.
Net proceeds from the sale benefit the Nina Simone Childhood Home in Tryon, North Carolina, preserved by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund — a site purchased in 2016 by Pendleton alongside fellow artists Ellen Gallagher, Julie Mehretu, and Rashid Johnson, and now restored as a place where Simone's story can be told on its own terms. For Hearst, Nina Simone has long been a kind of musical mother — the voice that met her when New York felt hardest, that modeled what it means to be fully, courageously alive to the world. This bag carries all of that.
The Nina bag is now on view and available for purchase exclusively at The Salon at Sotheby's New York, 945 Madison Avenue. Net proceeds benefit the Nina Simone Childhood Home, preserved by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. To inquire, contact TheSalon.NewYork@sothebys.com.
