Gabriela Hearst and artist Adam Pendleton have released a series of limited-edition Nina bags that erase the boundaries between painting, sculpture and design. Each unique bag is hand-painted and signed.
Hearst’s original Nina bag was named in tribute to iconic musician and activist Nina Simone. In 2017, Pendleton, along with fellow artists Ellen Gallagher, Rashid Johnson and Julie Mehretu, purchased Simone’s childhood home in Tryon, N.C., to preserve her legacy. Net sales proceeds of the limited-edition bag will benefit the Nina Simone Childhood Home, preserved by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Hearst and Pendleton reimagined the bag as an art object and a site for painterly intervention. Pendleton treated each bag as a portable canvas.
A total of 25 individually signed and numbered bags will be available for purchase exclusively through Sotheby’s, a longstanding supporter of the Nina Simone Childhood Home. The collection will be on view at the Sotheby’s Salon in New York, located within the auction house’s new headquarters at the Breuer building at 945 Madison Avenue from Friday through April 26.
One of the limited-edition hand-painted Nina bags by artist Adam Pendleton and Gabriela Hearst.
Courtesy of Gabriela Hearst
“Using Gabriela’s Nina bag as a canvas to honor Nina Simone’s life and legacy made immediate sense to me,” Pendleton said. “The contours of the bag are as iconic as Nina Simone’s voice and her artistic courage. I’m proud to make an object people can carry with them — one that reinforces the possibilities of art, life and meaningful collaboration. Nina Simone refused to separate beauty from truth — that’s something I think about in my own work, and something this project with Gabriela aims to carry forward so Nina’s name and music will be known for generations to come.”
Hearst said, “This was a project of careful thoroughness and thought process in honor of Nina Simone, a muse and an inspiration for us. The reward was not only paying homage to Nina Simone, but also that a new friendship was created with Adam Pendleton.”
