Peter Fonda, 23 Feb 1940 – 16 Aug 2019 Search this
Dennis Hopper, 17 May 1936 - 29 May 2010 Search this
Medium:
Lithograph on paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 200.2 × 140.3cm (78 13/16 × 55 1/4")
Type:
Print
Date:
1969
Exhibition Label:
Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda’s low-budget counterculture film Easy Rider was a sensation when it was released in 1969. It also helped make B-movie actor Jack Nicholson (born 1937) into a star. Nicholson plays a small-town Louisiana lawyer who gets the main characters out of jail and then rides away with them in pursuit of the quintessential American dream—the freedom of the open road. He is killed in a savage beating when the trio is attacked by hostile locals. An unlikely hit, Easy Rider introduced Nicholson, and his trademark wise-guy smirk, to a national audience. Hollywood took notice, too: he caught the attention of directors like Stanley Kubrick and a year later received a Best Actor nomination for his role in Five Easy Pieces (1970).
