Country/region Switcher

Now shipping worldwide!

Discover the Pre Fall 2026 Collection Discover the Pre Fall 2026 Collection
Complimentary Domestic Shipping & Returns Complimentary Domestic Shipping & Returns
menu

close menu
Discover Pre Fall 2026 Collection

Gabriela Hearst and Adam Pendleton Release a Series of Limited-edition Nina Bags

Discover Now

Artist Adam Pendleton and designer Gabriela Hearst release a series of limited-edition Nina bags that collapse the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and design. Each bag is hand-painted, signed, and entirely unique.


Legendary musician and activist Nina Simone is a touchstone for both Hearst and Pendleton. Gabriela Hearst’s original Nina bag, named in tribute to Nina Simone, has become a defining silhouette in contemporary fashion. In 2017, Pendleton, along with fellow artists Ellen Gallagher, Rashid Johnson, and Julie Mehretu, purchased Nina Simone’s childhood home to preserve the musician’s 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.


Curated and published by Sharon Coplan, the project positions Pendleton’s iconic visual language in direct dialogue with one of contemporary fashion’s most recognizable silhouettes, reimagining the bag as an art object and a site for painterly intervention. Pendleton treats each bag as a portable canvas, resulting in a quietly radical work. With a reputation for craftsmanship, sustainability, and deeply considered design, Gabriela Hearst brings a legacy of intention to the project, making her the natural partner for this edition. 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, most recently hosting a benefit auction for the preservation project in 2023. 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 (945 Madison Avenue), from 3 – 26 April.

“Using Gabriela’s Nina bag as a canvas to honor Nina Simone’s life and legacy made immediate sense to me,” says Adam Pendleton. “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.”


Gabriela Hearst says “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.”

“The Nina exists somewhere between mediums,” says Curator Sharon Coplan. “In Adam Pendleton’s hand-painted forms and Gabriela Hearst’s iconic silhouette, Nina Simone’s influence finds new expression, it’s intimate and enduring, a work of art.”


“Nina Simone’s childhood home is an essential landmark in our nation’s artistic and cultural landscape,” says Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and strategic advisor to the CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “This restoration effort affirms Nina Simone’s rightful place in the American story—one defined by brilliance, resilience, and the power of art to shape our collective conscience. The Action Fund is grateful to Adam Pendleton’s artistic and philanthropic commitment to preserving Nina’s legacy, and we are delighted to receive additional support through his collaboration with Gabriela Hearst and Sotheby’s.”


“This collaboration marks an exciting milestone for Sotheby’s as our first exclusive offering for the retail Salon at the Breuer, underscoring our commitment to the exceptional and our unique ability to present works that bridge art and luxury” says Whitney Miller, Sotheby’s Global Head of Retail and Programming. “We are honored to work alongside Gabriela Hearst and Adam Pendleton to preserve and celebrate Nina Simone’s legacy, building on our continued support following the 2023 benefit auction. We look forward to the exclusive presentation of the Nina bag, an editioned work that embodies the transformative power of art and fashion to serve the public good.”

Adam Pendleton, a central figure in contemporary American art, is known for paintings that have redefined the boundaries of abstraction. Upending linear compositional logic, Pendleton’s paintings are created through a distilled layering of gesture, fragment, and form. Each painting comes to life through expressionistic flourishes, stark contrasts, and subtle uses of material, tone, and finish, combined with a precision reminiscent of minimal and conceptual art. In 2008, he began to define his working method as Black Dada, a critical framework for exploring the relationship between Blackness, abstraction, and the historical avant-gardes—for which he is now widely recognized.


Pendleton’s painting process begins on paper, where he explores the full breadth of mark-making. He layers paint, spray paint, ink, and watercolor, integrating fragmentary text and geometric forms, often using stenciling techniques. These works on paper are photographed and then combined through a screen-printing process. Blurring distinctions between painting, drawing, and photography, the resulting paintings are a tangible manifestation of his belief in painting as a powerful “visual and conceptual force.”


Adam Pendleton: Love, Queen continues at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, through 2027. In 2026, Pendleton will present solo exhibitions at the Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany; the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.


In 2024, Pendleton was honored with the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award for Painting from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Adam Pendleton: Love, Queen, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (2025–2027); Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st-Century Art and Poetics, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2024–2025); Adam Pendleton: Blackness, White, and Light, mumok—Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna (2023–2024); Adam Pendleton: To Divide By, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (2023–2024); Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2022); Adam Pendleton: These Things We’ve Done Together, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2022); and Adam Pendleton: Who Is Queen?, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2021–2022).


Pendleton’s work is held in numerous public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Tate, London; and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich.

Stories

Discover More:
×