Nina Simone Sings Pirate Jenny #96

This print belongs to a group of works that Kate Shepherd calls “Protest Posters.” The work receives its name from the song “Pirate Jenny,” composed in the late 1920s for The Threepenny Opera (1928) and reinterpreted in 1964 by singer, songwriter, and civil rights activist Nina Simone (1933–2003). Putting an entirely new spin on the work, Simone made dramatic changes to the song’s setting (transposing it to what she called “a crummy southern town”), title character, and politics. Shepherd states that she aimed for the work’s use of color to have a visceral, political impact, akin to the one Simone produced with her song. "'Pirate Jenny’ is a song of revenge,” Shepherd states. “It’s fiercely feminist. Fifty years after it was written, Nina Simone brought it new meaning. Two kinds of urgencies from two strong women—a perfect layering of one time to another.”