Mister Nicotine: The George Condo Purple Book
Special artist book created by George Condo for Purple Institute's Purple Books series, a rare supplement to Purple Fashion magazine issue 23 (Spring/Summer 2015). Titled "Mister Nicotine," this publication represents Condo's collaboration with Purple—the influential Paris-based fashion and contemporary art magazine founded by Olivier Zahm and Elein Fleiss in 1992. Purple Books, launched as an extension of the magazine, commissions artists to create autonomous book works that exist at the intersection of artist publication, magazine supplement, and collectible edition.
Born in 1957, George Condo pioneered "Psychological Cubism," representing multiple emotional and psychological states simultaneously within single figures. His "Artificial Realism" synthesizes Old Master painting techniques with American pop culture and cartoon aesthetics, creating distorted portraits that authentically depict psychological complexity and contradiction. Emerging from New York's 1980s East Village scene, Condo has maintained close connections to fashion and music worlds throughout his career, collaborating with Kanye West on album artwork and participating in fashion magazine projects that blur boundaries between fine art and popular culture.
"Mister Nicotine" likely explores Condo's recurring themes of consumption, addiction, and psychological states through his signature visual language of fragmented faces, multiple eyes, and distorted features. The title evokes both the glamorous smoking culture historically associated with fashion imagery and Condo's darker investigations into compulsive behavior and altered consciousness. This format—between magazine and artist book—allowed Condo to reach Purple's international fashion and art audience while maintaining the conceptual autonomy of an independent artist publication.
Published by Purple Institute, Paris, 2015. Format: 21.0 × 29.7 cm, softcover. Part of the rare Purple Books series. George Condo's work is held in collections including MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum, Whitney Museum, Louisiana Museum, Guggenheim, and The Broad. This publication represents Condo's engagement with fashion world contexts and magazine-format artist books, extending his practice beyond traditional gallery and museum presentations.
