Edward Joseph Ruscha IV (, ''roo-SHAY''; born December 16, 1937) is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniqu ...

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayo ...

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

and

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

. He is also noted for creating several

artist's books Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...

. His works is often associated with the Pop Art movement. Ruscha lives and works in

Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...

Early life and education

Ruscha was born into a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

family in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest ...

, with an older sister, Shelby, and a younger brother, Paul. Edward Ruscha, Sr. was an auditor for Hartford Insurance Company. Ruscha's mother was supportive of her son's early signs of artistic skill and interests. Young Ruscha was attracted to cartooning and would sustain this interest throughout his adolescent years. Though born in

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

, Ruscha lived some 15 years in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, and ...

before moving to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

in 1956 where he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute (now known as the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

) under Robert Irwin and

Emerson Woelffer Emerson Seville Woelffer (July 27, 1914 – February 2, 2003) was an American artist and arts educator. He was known as a prominent abstract expressionist artist and painter and taught art at some of the most prestigious colleges and universities ...

from 1956 through 1960. While at Chouinard, Ruscha edited and produced the journal "Orb" (1959–60) together with Joe Goode, Emerson Woelffer, Stephan von Huene, Jerry McMillan, and others. Ruscha spent much of the summer of 1961 traveling through Europe. After graduation, Ruscha took a job as a layout artist for the Carson-Roberts Advertising Agency in Los Angeles. By the early 1960s he was well known for his paintings,

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an Assemblage (art), assemblage of different forms, thus creat ...

s, and photographs, and for his association with the Ferus Gallery group, which also included artists Robert Irwin, John Altoon, John McCracken, Larry Bell, Ken Price, and Edward Kienholz. He worked as layout designer for

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

magazine under the pseudonym “Eddie Russia” from 1965 to 1969 and taught at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

as a visiting professor for printing and drawing in 1969. He is also a lifelong friend of guitarist Mason Williams.

Work

Ruscha achieved recognition for paintings incorporating words and phrases and for his many photographic books, all influenced by the deadpan irreverence of the Pop Art movement. His textual, flat paintings have been linked with both the Pop Art movement and the

beat generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Genera ...

Early influences

While in school in 1957, Ruscha chanced upon then unknown Jasper Johns’ ''Target with Four Faces'' in the magazine '' Print'' and was greatly moved. Ruscha has credited these artists’ work as sources of inspiration for his change of interest from

graphic arts A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i.e. produced on a flat surface.

. He was also impacted by John McLaughlin's paintings, the work of H.C. Westermann, Arthur Dove’s 1925 painting ''Goin’ Fishin’'', Alvin Lustig's cover illustrations for

New Directions Press New Directions Publishing Corp. is an independent book publishing company that was founded in 1936 by James Laughlin and incorporated in 1964. Its offices are located at 80 Eighth Avenue in New York City. History New Directions was born in 193 ...

, and much of

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

’s work. In a 1961 tour of Europe, Ruscha came upon more works by Johns and

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

, R. A. Bertelli’s ''Head of

Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until Fall of the Fascist re ...

'', and '' Ophelia'' by

Sir John Everett Millais Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, ( , ; 8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest s ...

. Some critics are quick to see the influence of

Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...

's '' Gas'' (1940) in Ruscha's 1963 oil painting, ''Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas.'' In any case, "Art has to be something that makes you scratch your head," Ruscha said.

Southern California

Although Ruscha denies this in interviews, the vernacular of

and

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

landscapes contributes to the themes and styles central to much of Ruscha's paintings, drawings, and books. Examples of this include the publication ''Every Building on the Sunset Strip'' (1966), a book of continuous photographs of a two and one half mile stretch of the 24 mile

boulevard A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway. Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls. In American usage, boulevards may ...

. In 1973, following the model of ''Every Building on the Sunset Strip'', he photographed the entire length of

Hollywood Boulevard Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywoo ...

with a motorized camera. Also, paintings like ''Standard Station'' (1966), ''Large Trademark'' (1962), and ''Hollywood'' (1982) exemplify Ruscha's kinship with the Southern California visual language. Two of these paintings, ''Standard'' and ''Large Trademark'' were emulated out of car parts in 2008 by Brazilian photographer Vik Muniz as a commentary on Los Angeles and its car culture. His work is also strongly influenced by the Hollywood film industry: the mountain in his Mountain Series is a play on the

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

logo; ''Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights'' (1962) depicts the

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...

logo, while the dimensions of this work are reminiscent of a movie screen; in his painting ''The End'' (1991) these two words, which comprised the final shot in all black-and-white films, are surrounded by scratches and streaks reminiscent of damaged celluloid. Also, the proportions of the ''Hollywood'' print seems to mimic the

Cinemascope CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter. Its creation in 1953 by ...

screen (however, to make the word "Hollywood", Ruscha transposed the letters of the sign from their actual location on the slope of the

Santa Monica Mountains The Santa Monica Mountains is a coastal mountain range in Southern California, next to the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Transverse Ranges. Because of its proximity to densely populated regions, it is one of the most visited natural areas in ...

to the crest of the ridge). Ruscha completed ''Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights'' in 1961, one year after graduating from college. Among his first paintings (''SU'' (1958–1960), ''Sweetwater'' (1959)) this is the most widely known, and exemplifies Ruscha's interests in popular culture, word depictions, and commercial graphics that would continue to inform his work throughout his career. ''Large Trademark'' was quickly followed by ''Standard Station'' (1963) and ''Wonder Bread'' (1962). In ''Norm’s, La Cienega, on Fire'' (1964), ''Burning Gas Station'' (1965–66), and ''Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Fire'' (1965–68), Ruscha brought flames into play. In 1966, Ruscha reproduced ''Standard Station'' in a

silkscreen Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mes ...

print using a split-fountain printing technique, introducing a gradation of tone in the background of the print, with variations following in 1969 (''Mocha Standard'', ''Cheese Mold Standard with Olive'', and ''Double Standard''). In 1985, Ruscha begins a series of "City Lights" paintings, where grids of bright spots on dark grounds suggest aerial views of the city at night. More recently, his "Metro Plots" series chart the various routes that transverse the city of Los Angeles by rendering schematized street maps and blow-ups of its neighborhood sections, such as in ''Alvarado to Doheny'' (1998). The paintings are grey and vary in their degrees of light and dark, therefore appearing as they were done by pencil in the stippling technique. A 2003 portfolio of prints called ''Los Francisco San Angeles'' shows street intersections from San Francisco and LA juxtaposed one over the other.

Word paintings

As with

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

and

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. ...

, his East Coast counterparts, Ed Ruscha's artistic training was rooted in commercial art. His interest in words and typography ultimately provided the primary subject of his paintings, prints and photographs. The very first of Ruscha's word paintings were created as oil paintings on paper in Paris in 1961. Since 1964, Ruscha has been experimenting regularly with painting and drawing words and phrases, often oddly comic and satirical sayings alluding to popular culture and life in LA. When asked where he got his inspiration for his paintings, Ruscha responded, “Well, they just occur to me; sometimes people say them and I write down and then I paint them. Sometimes I use a dictionary.” From 1966 to 1969, Ruscha painted his “liquid word” paintings: Words such as ''Adios'' (1967), ''Steel'' (1967–9) and ''Desire'' (1969) were written as if with liquid spilled, dribbled or sprayed over a flat monochromatic surface. His gunpowder and graphite drawings (made during a period of self-imposed exile from painting from 1967 to 1970) feature single words depicted in a trompe l’oeil technique, as if the words are formed from ribbons of curling paper. Experimenting with humorous sounds and rhyming word plays, Ruscha made a portfolio of seven mixed-media lithographs with the rhyming words, ''News, Mews, Pews, Brews, Stews, Dues, News'' (1970). In the 1970s, Ruscha, with Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, among others, began using entire phrases in their works, thereby making it a distinctive characteristic of the post-Pop Art generation. During the mid-1970s, he made a series of drawings in pastel using pithy phrases against a field of colour. In the early 1980s he produced a series of paintings of words over sunsets, night skies and wheat fields. In the photo-realist painting ''Brave Men Run In My Family'' (1988), part of the artist's "Dysfuntional Family" series, Ruscha runs the text over the silhouetted image of a great, listing tall ship; the piece was a collaboration with fellow Los Angeles artist Nancy Reese (she did the painting, he the lettering). In a series of insidious small abstract paintings from 1994 to 1995, words forming threats are rendered as blank widths of contrasting color like

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one ...

. Later, words appeared on a photorealist mountain-range series which Ruscha started producing in 1998. For these acrylic-on-canvas works, Ruscha pulled his mountain images either from photographs, commercial logos, or from his imagination. From 1980, Ruscha started using an

all-caps In typography, all caps (short for "all capitals") refers to text or a font in which all letters are capital letters, for example: "THIS TEXT IS IN ALL CAPS". All caps may be used for emphasis (for a word or phrase). They are commonly seen in l ...

typeface of his own invention named ”Boy Scout Utility Modern” in which curved letter forms are squared-off (as in the

Hollywood Sign The Hollywood Sign is an American landmark and cultural icon overlooking Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Originally the Hollywoodland Sign, it is situated on Mount Lee, in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Santa Monica Mountains. Spelli ...

) This simple font is radically different from the style he used in works such as ''Honk'' (1962). Beginning in the mid-1980s, in many of his paintings black or white ‘blanks’ or ‘censor strips’ are included, to suggest where the ‘missing’ words would have been placed. The ‘blanks’ would also feature in his series of Silhouette, Cityscapes or ‘censored’ word works, often made in bleach on canvas, rayon or linen.

Surrealism

Paintings like ''Angry Because It’s Plaster, Not Milk'' (1965) and ''Strange Catch for a Fresh Water Fish'' (1965) are exemplary works from Ruscha's group of paintings from the mid-1960s that take the strict idea of literal representation into the realm of the absurd. This body of work is characterized by what the artist termed “bouncing objects, floating things,” such as a radically oversized red bird and glass hovering in front of a simple background in the work and have a strong affinity to

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

, a recurring theme in the artist's career. The fish plays a prominent role throughout the series and appears in nearly half of the paintings. Another frequent element is Ruscha's continuous depiction of a graphite pencil - broken, splintered, melted, transformed.

Odd media

In his drawings, prints, and paintings throughout the 1970s, Ruscha experimented with a range of materials including

gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). T ...

, vinyl,

blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the cir ...

, red wine,

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in partic ...

and vegetable juices,

axle grease Grease is a solid or semisolid lubricant formed as a dispersion of thickening agents in a liquid lubricant. Grease generally consists of a soap emulsified with mineral or vegetable oil. A common feature of greases is that they possess a high init ...

, chocolate syrup, tomato paste, bolognese sauce, cherry pie, coffee, caviar, daffodils, tulips, raw eggs and

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...

stains. ''Stains'', an editioned portfolio of 75 stained sheets of paper produced and published by Ruscha in 1969, bears the traces of a variety of materials and fluids. In the portfolio of screenprints ''News, Mews, Pews, Brews, Stews, Dues'' (1970), produced at Editions Alecto, London, rhyming words appear in Gothic typeface, printed in edible substances such as pie fillings, bolognese sauce, caviar, and chocolate syrup. Ruscha has also produced his word paintings with food products on moiré and

silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from th ...

s, since they were more stain-absorbent; paintings like ''A Blvd. Called Sunset'' (1975) were executed in blackberry juice on moiré. However, these most vibrant and varied organic colourings usually dried to a range of muted greys, mustards and browns. His portfolio ''Insects'' (1972) consists of six screen prints – three on paper, three on paper-backed wood veneer, each showing a lifelike swarm of a different meticulously detailed species. For the April 1972 cover of

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countr ...

, he composed an

Arcimboldo Giuseppe Arcimboldo (; also spelled ''Arcimboldi'') (1526 or 1527 – 11 July 1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of objects such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish and books. These wor ...

-like photograph that spelled out the magazine's title in a salad of squashed foods. Ruscha's ''Fruit Metrecal Hollywood'' (1971) is an example of the artist's use of unusual materials, this

of the "Hollywood" sign is rendered in apricot and grape jam and the diet drink Metrecal on paper.

Motifs in light

Notably different from many of Ruscha's works of the same period, most obviously in its exclusion of text, his series of ''Miracle'' pastel drawings from in the mid-1970s show bright beams of light burst forth from skies with dark clouds. An overall glow is created by the black pastel not being completely opaque, allowing the paper to shine through. In the 1980s, a more subtle motif began to appear, again in a series of drawings, some incorporating dried vegetable pigments: a mysterious patch of light cast by an unseen window that serves as background for phrases such as ''WONDER SICKNESS'' (1984) and ''99% DEVIL, 1% ANGEL'' (1983). By the 1990s, Ruscha was creating larger paintings of light projected into empty rooms, some with ironic titles such as ''An Exhibition of Gasoline Powered Engines'' (1993).

Commissioned works

Ruscha's first major public commissions include a monumental mural at the

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (or MCASD), in San Diego, California, US, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present. Mission The stated mission o ...

(1966) and a seventy-panel, 360-degree work for the Great Hall of Denver Public Library in Colorado (1995). Created as part of a public-art commission, ''The Back of Hollywood'' (1976–77) was made from a large sheet of sateen on a billboard and situated opposite the

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

, designed to be read in the rear-view mirror of a moving car. In 1985 Ruscha was commissioned to design a series of fifty murals, ''WORDS WITHOUT THOUGHTS NEVER TO HEAVEN GO'' (a quotation from ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

''), for the rotunda of Miami–Dade Public Library (now the Miami Art Museum) in Florida, designed by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee. In 1989, Ruscha decorated a pool for his brother Paul at his house in

Studio City, Los Angeles Studio City is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California, in the southeast San Fernando Valley, just west of the Cahuenga Pass. It is named after the studio lot that was established in the area by film producer Mack Sennett in 19 ...

, with a supersized luggage label: on a black tiled background are the words Name, Address and Phone, complete with dotted lines. In 1998, Ruscha was commissioned to produce a nearly thirty-foot high vertical painting entitled ''PICTURE WITHOUT WORDS'', for the lobby of the Harold M. Williams Auditorium of the

Getty Center The Getty Center, in Los Angeles, California, is a campus of the Getty Museum and other programs of the Getty Trust. The $1.3 billion center opened to the public on December 16, 1997 and is well known for its architecture, gardens, and views overl ...

. He produced another site-specific piece, three 13-by-23-foot panels proclaiming ''Words In Their Best Order'', for the offices of

Gannett Company Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.M. H. de Young Memorial Museum to create two large-scale paintings that flank his ''A Particular Kind of Heaven'' (1983), which is in the museum's collection, to form a spectacular, monumental triptych. For his first public commission in New York in 2014, Ruscha created the hand-painted mural ''Honey, I Twisted Through More Damn Traffic Today'' for a temporary installation at the High Line. In 2008, Ruscha was among four text-based artists that were invited by the Whitechapel Gallery to write scripts to be performed by leading actors; Ruscha's contribution was ''Public Notice'' (2007). To celebrate the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

(SFMOMA)'s 75th anniversary, Ruscha was one of the artists invited to collaborate with the museum on a limited-edition of artist-designed T-shirts. Ruscha is regularly commissioned with works for private persons, among them James Frey (''Public Stoning'', 2007),

Lauren Hutton Lauren Hutton (born Mary Laurence Hutton; November 17, 1943) is an American model and actress. Born and raised in the southern United States, Hutton relocated to New York City in her early adulthood to begin a modeling career. Though she was ini ...

(''Boy Meets Girl'', 1987), and Stella McCartney (''Stella'', 2001). In 1987, collector Frederick Weisman had Ruscha paint the exterior of his private plane, a Lockheed JetStar. The summer 2012 campaign of L.A.-based fashion label

Band of Outsiders Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary * Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania * Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, ...

featured

Polaroid Polaroid may refer to: * Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras * Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation * Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs * Polar ...

shots of Ruscha. In 2020, Ruscha produced the cover art and typography of

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

's album

McCartney III ''McCartney III'' ("III" being stylised on the front cover as the three pips of a die) is the 18th solo album by English musician Paul McCartney, released on 18 December 2020 by Capitol Records. It serves as a continuation to his solo albums ''M ...

. In 2022, he teamed up with (RED) and

Gagosian Gallery Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in P ...

to create a limited-edition silk twill scarf – featuring his drawing ''Science Is Truth Found'' (1986) – to help provide more equitable access to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

relief.

Books

Between 1962 and 1978, Ruscha produced sixteen small artist's books: * ''

Twentysix Gasoline Stations ''Twentysix Gasoline Stations'' is the first artist's book by the American pop artist Ed Ruscha. Published in April 1963Edward Ruscha Editions, Engberg, Phillpot, Walker Art Center, 1999 on his own imprint National Excelsior Press,Edward Ruscha ...

'', 1963 * ''Various Small Fires'', 1964 * ''Some Los Angeles Apartments'', 1965 * ''Every Building on the Sunset Strip'', 1966 * ''Thirtyfour Parking Lots'', 1967 * ''Royal Road Test'', 1967 (with Mason Williams and Patrick Blackwell) * ''Business Cards'', 1968 (with

Billy Al Bengston Billy Al Bengston (June 7, 1934 – October 8, 2022) was an American visual artist and sculptor who lived and worked in Venice, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. Bengston was probably best known for work he created that reflected California's " ...

) * ''Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass'', 1968 * ''Crackers'', 1969 (with Mason Williams) * ''Real Estate Opportunities'', 1970 * ''Babycakes with Weights'', 1970 * ''A Few Palm Trees'', 1971 * ''Records'', 1971 * ''Dutch Details'', 1971 * ''Colored People'', 1972 * ''Hard Light'', 1978 (with Lawrence Weiner) Later book projects include: * ''Country Cityscapes'', 2001 * ''ME and THE'', 2002 * ''Ed Ruscha and Photography'', 2004 (with Sylvia Wolf) * ''OH / NO'', 2008 * ''

Dirty Baby ''Dirty Baby'' (stylized as ''DIRTY BABY'') is an album by American guitarist Nels Cline performing compositions inspired by Edward Ruscha, which was released in October 2010 on the Cryptogramophone label. ''Dirty Baby'' is also the name of a mul ...

'', 2010 (with

Nels Cline Nels Courtney Cline (born January 4, 1956) is an American guitarist and composer. He has been the guitarist for the band Wilco since 2004. In the 1980s he played jazz, often in collaboration with his twin brother Alex, a percussionist. He has w ...

and

David Breskin David Breskin is an American writer, poet, and record producer. He has written nine books, including collaborations with the visual artists Gerhard Richter and Ed Ruscha. Beginning in the early 1980s, he produced albums by musicians including ...

) In 1968, Ruscha created the cover design for the catalogue accompanying a

exhibition at the

. For the “ Documenta 5" catalogue in 1972, he designed an orange vinyl cover, featuring a “5” made up of scurrying black ants. In 1978, he designed the catalogue "Stella Since 1970" for the

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...

. ''Leave Any Information at the Signal'', a volume of Ruscha's writings, was published by

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publ ...

in 2002. In 2010,

and

Steidl Steidl is a German-language publisher, an international publisher of photobooks, and a printing company, based in Göttingen, Germany. It was started in 1968 by Gerhard Steidl and is still run by him. Overview The company was started by Ger ...

published Ruscha's version of

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian an ...

's novel ''On the Road'' in an edition of 350. Ruscha's artist books have proved to be deeply influential, beginning with Bruce Nauman’s ''Burning Small Fires'' (1968), for which Nauman burned Ruscha's ''Various Small Fires and Milk'' (1964) and photographed the process. More than forty years later, photographer Charles Johnstone relocated Ruscha's ''Twentysix Gasoline Stations'' in Cuba, producing the portfolio ''Twentysix Havana Gasoline Stations'' (2008). A recent homage is ''One Swimming Pool'' (2013) by Dutch artist

Elisabeth Tonnard Elisabeth Tonnard (1973) is a Dutch artist and poet working in artists' books, photography and literature. Biography Tonnard was born in Leerdam and has a master's degree in literature from Radboud University Nijmegen (where she also taught), ...

, who re-photographed one of the photographs from Ruscha's ''Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass'' (1968) and enlarged it to the size of a small swimming pool, consisting of 3164 pages the same size as the pages in Ruscha's original book. The pages of this ‘pool on a shelf’ can be detached to create the life-size installation.

Photography

Photography has played a crucial role throughout Ruscha's career, beginning with images he made during a trip to Europe with his mother and brother in 1961, and most memorably as the imagery for more than a dozen books that present precisely what their titles describe. His photographs are straightforward, even deadpan, in their depiction of subjects that are not generally thought of as having aesthetic qualities. His "Products" pictures, for example, feature boxes of Sunmaid raisins and Oxydol detergent and a can of Sherwin Williams turpentine in relatively formal still lifes. Mostly devoid of human presence, these photographs emphasize the essential form of the structure and its placement within the built environment. Ruscha's photographic editions are most often based on his conceptual art-books of same or similar name. Ruscha re-worked the negatives of six of the images from his book ''Every Building on Sunset Strip''. The artist then cut and painted directly on the negatives, resulting in photographs that have the appearance of a faded black-and-white film. The ''Tropical Fish'' series (1974–75) represents the first instance where the photographic image has been directly used in his graphic work, where Ruscha had

Gemini G.E.L. Gemini G.E.L., formally Gemini Ltd., is an artists‘ workshop, exhibition space, and publisher of limited edition prints and sculptures, located at 8365 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, California. History Gemini Ltd. was founded in 1965 by mast ...

's house photographer Malcolm Lubliner make photographs of a range of common domestic objects.

Films and documentaries

In the 1970s, Ruscha also made a series of largely unknown short movies, such as ''Premium'' (1971) and ''Miracle'' (1975). With the assistance of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Ruscha arranged in ''Premium'' a scenario which he first projected in his photo-book ''Crackers'' from 1969 and subsequently transformed into a film which features Larry Bell, Leon Bing, Rudi Gernreich, and Tommy Smothers. ''Miracle'' contains the essence of the artist's same-named painting, inasmuch as the story is told of a strange day in the life of an auto mechanic, who is magically transformed as he rebuilds the carburetor on a 1965

Ford Mustang The Ford Mustang is a series of American automobiles manufactured by Ford. In continuous production since 1964, the Mustang is currently the longest-produced Ford car nameplate. Currently in its sixth generation, it is the fifth-best selli ...

. The movie features Jim Ganzer and Michelle Phillips. In 1984, he accepted a small role in the film ''Choose Me'' directed by his friend Alan Rudolph, and in 2010, he starred in Doug Aitken's film ''Sleepwalkers''. Artist Tom Sachs' 2018 short film ''Paradox Bullets'' stars Ruscha in the role of a hiker lost in the desert and guided only by the voice of

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with u ...

. Ruscha was featured in Michael Blackwood's film documentary ''American Art in the Sixties''. He appeared in ''L.A. Suggested by the Art of Edward Ruscha'', a 1981 documentary by

Gary Conklin Gary Conklin is an independent American filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. Conklin works predominantly in the documentary genre. His films focus on cultural icons of the 20th century. Subjects have included the late American writer ...

shot at the artist's studio and desert home. Interviews with Ruscha are included in the documentaries ''Dennis Hopper: The Decisive Moments'' (2002), ''

Sketches of Frank Gehry ''Sketches of Frank Gehry'' is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Sydney Pollack and produced by Ultan Guilfoyle, about the life and work of the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. The film was screened out of competition at the 2006 ...

'' (2005), ''The Cool School'' (2008), '' Iconoclasts'' (2008), and ''How to Make a Book with Steidl'' (2010), among others.

Exhibitions

Birth of "Pop Art"

In 1962 Ruscha's work was included, along with

, Robert Dowd,

Phillip Hefferton Phillip Hefferton (July 25, 1933 – April 2, 2008) was an American pop artist from Detroit, Michigan, known for his paintings of banknotes. Artist In 1958-9 he began drawing "common objects". In 1960 his work was featured in an ''Art in Ameri ...

, Joe Goode, Jim Dine, and Wayne Thiebaud, in the historically important and ground-breaking " New Painting of Common Objects," curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum. This exhibition is historically considered one of the first "Pop Art" exhibitions in America. Ruscha had his first solo exhibition in 1963 at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. In 1966, Ruscha was included in "Los Angeles Now" at the Robert Fraser Gallery in London, his first European exhibition. In 1968, he had his first European solo show in Cologne, Germany, at Galerie Rudolf Zwirner. Ruscha joined the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1970 and had his first solo exhibition there in 1973.

Retrospectives

In 1970 Ruscha represented the United States at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

as part of a survey of American printmaking with an on-site workshop. He constructed ''Chocolate Room,'' a visual and sensory experience where the visitor saw 360 pieces of paper permeated with chocolate and hung like shingles on the gallery walls. The pavilion in Venice smelled like a chocolate factory. For the Venice Biennale in 1976, Ruscha created an installation entitled ''Vanishing Cream'', consisting of letters written in Vaseline petroleum jelly on a black wall. Ruscha was the United States representative at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, showing the site- and occasion-specific a painting cycle ''Course of Empire''. He was interviewed about the pavilion and its curation by Linda Norden and

Donna De Salvo Donna De Salvo is an American curator who was appointed the Dia Art Foundation's senior adjunct curator of special projects. She previously served as the Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New Yo ...

Sarah Thornton Sarah L. Thornton (born 1965) is a writer, ethnographer and sociologist of culture. Thornton has authored three books and many articles about artists, the art market, technology and design, the history of music technology, dance clubs, raves ...

's ''Seven Days in the Art World''. He has been the subject of numerous museum retrospectives, beginning in 1983 with the

(traveling to the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the San Antonio Museum of Art, and the

), the

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

in 1989, the

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desig ...

in 2000, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in 2001. In 2004, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney mounted a selection of the artist's photographs, paintings, books and drawings that traveled to the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome and to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. In 1998, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles organized a retrospective solely devoted to Ruscha's works on paper. In 2004, The

exhibited a second Ruscha drawing retrospective, which traveled to the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ...

, and then to the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, Washington, D.C. In 1999, the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

mounted ''Edward Ruscha: Editions 1959-1999'', a major retrospective of the artist's prints, books, and graphic works, which number well over 300. The show travelled to the LACMA in 2000. Ruscha coauthored the catalogue raisonné with Walker curator

Siri Engberg Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer que ...

. In July 2012, ''Reading Ed Ruscha'' opened at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria. In 2006, an exhibition of Ruscha's photographs was organized for the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the

Museum Ludwig Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lic ...

in Cologne. In October 2009, London's

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the R ...

featured the first retrospective to focus exclusively on Ruscha's canvases. Entitled "Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting," the exhibition sheds light on his influences, such as comics, graphic design, and hitchhiking. The exhibition travelled to

Haus der Kunst The ''Haus der Kunst'' (, ''House of Art'') is a non-collecting modern and contemporary art museum in Munich, Germany. It is located at Prinzregentenstraße 1 at the southern edge of the Englischer Garten, Munich's largest park. History N ...

, Munich, and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. “Ed Ruscha: Road Tested,” opened at the

, Texas in January 2011. The

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur ...

in Los Angeles prepared an exhibition with Ruscha inspired by

’s ''On the Road'', which opened in mid-2011 (traveled to Denver Art Museum, Colorado in December 2011 and Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida in May 2012). In 2016, there was a large 99 piece exhibit of Ruscha's paintings and prints in San Francisco's M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. The exhibit, "Ed Ruscha and the Great American West," focuses primarily on how the artist drew inspiration from the American West. In 1956, Ruscha drove from his home in Oklahoma to Los Angeles where he hoped to attend art school. While driving in a 1950 Ford sedan, the 18 year old artist drew inspiration from dilapidated gas stations, billboards, and telephone poles cross the great expanse of the land. This inspiration from the American West across Route 66 stuck with Ruscha his whole life. The artists paintings of the West reflect both symbolic and ironic renditions of how we imagine the West. In 2018, The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas presented "Ed Ruscha: Archaeology and Romance," featuring more than 150 objects drawn from the Ransom Center's Edward Ruscha Papers and Art Collection,

Curating

In 2003, Ed Ruscha curated "Emerson Woelffer: A Solo Flight", a survey of the work of the late Los Angeles-based Abstract Expressionist, for the inaugural exhibition of the Gallery at

REDCAT Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT) is an interdisciplinary contemporary arts center for innovative visual, performing and media arts in downtown Los Angeles, located inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. Opened in November 20 ...

(Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater). In 2012, Ruscha was invited to curate “The Ancients Stole All Our Great Ideas” at the

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal d ...

in Vienna, the first exhibition in a series for which internationally renowned artists were invited to work with the national art and natural history collections.

Collections

In 2000, the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, a branch of

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...

, acquired Ruscha's complete graphic archive of 325 prints and 800 working proofs. The museum bought the archive and negotiated for impressions of future prints for $10 million, with funds provided by San Francisco philanthropist

Phyllis Wattis Phyllis is a feminine given name which may refer to: People * Phyllis Bartholomew (1914–2002), English long jumper * Phyllis Drummond Bethune (née Sharpe, 1899–1982), New Zealand artist * Phyllis Calvert (1915–2002), British actress * Ph ...

. Another major collection of Ruscha's prints was compiled by the

. In 2003, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles acquired the ''Chocolate Room'', then worth about $1.5 million. In 2004, the Whitney Museum acquired more than 300 photographs through a purchase and gift from the artist, making it the principal repository of Ruscha's photographic oevre. The gift, purchased from Larry Gagosian, includes vintage photographs that Ruscha took on a seven-month European tour in 1961. In 2005,

Leonard A. Lauder Leonard Alan Lauder (born March 19, 1933) is an American billionaire, philanthropist, art collector. He and his brother, Ronald Lauder, are the sole heirs to the Estée Lauder Companies cosmetics fortune, founded by their parents, Estée Laude ...

purchased ''The Old Tool & Die Building'' (2004) and ''The Old Trade School Building'' (2005) for the Whitney, both of which were part of "The Course of Empire: Paintings by Ed Ruscha" at the Venice Biennale. Ruscha is represented by 33 of his works in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the

owns 25 Ruscha paintings, works on paper, and photographs; the

has 21 Ruschas in its permanent collection; and the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

has more than 40 works by the artist in their collection. Ruscha also has small collections of books and lithographs in the

Utah Museum of Fine Arts The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) is the region's primary resource for culture and visual arts. It is located in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building in Salt Lake City, Utah on the University of Utah campus near Rice-Eccles Stadium. Works ...

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, t ...

and in Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art in

Montsoreau Montsoreau () is a commune of the Loire Valley in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast and from Paris. The village is listed among '' The Most Beautiful Villages of France'' (french: Les Plus Be ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Ruscha's private collectors have in the past included Leonardo DiCaprio,

Owen Wilson Owen Cunningham Wilson (born November 18, 1968) is an American actor. He has had a long association with filmmaker Wes Anderson with whom he shared writing and acting credits for ''Bottle Rocket'' (1996), '' Rushmore'' (1998), and '' The Royal ...

and

Jay-Z Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and founder of Manhattan-based conglomerate talent and entertainment agency Roc Nation. He is regarded as one o ...

Awards

*2001: Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters as a member of the Department of Art, after having previously received its Hassam, Speicher, Betts, and Symons Purchase Fund Award in 1992'. *2001: Honorary doctorate degree from

California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in Sa ...

*2002: amfAR’s Award of Excellence for Artistic Contributions to the Fight Against AIDS *2004: Honorary Royal Academician of London’s

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

*2006: The Cultural Award from the German Society for Photography (DGPh)The Cultural Award of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh)
. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie e.V.. Accessed 7 March 2017. *2008: Aspen Award for Art *2008: Honorary doctorate degree from

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

*2009: National Arts Award for Artistic Excellence *2009: Honorary doctorate degree from

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

*2013: Named in ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world *2013: Honored on the occasion of the

's annual gala event *2019: J. Paul Getty Medal

Recognition

Fellow artist

Louise Lawler Louise Lawler (born 1947) is a U.S. artist and photographer living in Brooklyn, New York.Louise Lawler ...

included Ruscha in her piece ''Birdcalls'' (1972/2008), an audio artwork that transforms the names of famous male artists into a bird song, parroting names such as Artschwager, Beuys, and

Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

in a mockery of conditions of privilege and recognition given to male artists at that time. The muralist

Kent Twitchell Kent Twitchell (born August 17, 1942, Lansing, Michigan) is an American muralist who is most active in Los Angeles. He is most famous for his larger-than-life mural portraits, often of celebrities and artists. His murals are realism not photoreal ...

painted an 11,000-square-foot

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanis ...

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is a ...

to honor Ruscha entitled the ''Ed Ruscha Monument'' between 1978 and 1987. The mural was preserved until 2006 when it was illegally painted over. The band

Talking Heads Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991.Talki ...

Ruscha's eponymous 1974 painting for their " Sand in the Vaseline" compilation album. The band

Various Cruelties Various Cruelties are a four-piece London-based band described as " Motown-influenced pop." Formed in 2010, Various Cruelties received early acclaim based on a self-released limited edition single, "If It Wasn't For You," and signed with Mercury ...

, based around Liam O'Donnell, was named after Ruscha's painting of the same name of 1974. Between 2006 and 2012, Ruscha served on the board of trustees of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles where he had previously been included in eight special exhibits. In 2012, he was the honoree of the

’s Art + Film gala; in a speech, the museums's director Michal Govan paid tribute to the artist, quoting the novelist J. G. Ballard: “Ed Ruscha has the coolest gaze in American art.” Ruscha was elected to a three-year term on the board of trustees of the

in 2013. From 2015 until 2019, Ruscha also served on the board of Desert X; he resigned over the board's decision to collaborate on an exhibition in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...

. In 2009, Ruscha's ''I Think I’ll...'' (1983) from the collection of the National Gallery was installed at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

. In 2010, during British prime minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

's first visit to Washington, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

presented him with a signed two-colour lithograph by Ruscha, ''Column With Speed Lines'' (2003), chosen for its red, white and blue colours. Obama gave Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott a similar lithograph during his visit to the White House in 2014. Ruscha's ''Screaming in Spanish'' (2013) was installed in the entry hall of the residence of the

United States Ambassador to Spain The incumbent ambassador is Julissa Reynoso Pantaleón, she was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on January 7, 2022 and presented her credentials on February 2, 2022. This is a list of United States ambassadors to Spain from 1779 to th ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

Art market

As early as 2002, the oil on canvas word painting ''Talk About Space'' (1963), a takeoff on the American billboard in which a single word is the subject, was expected to sell for $1.5 million to $2 million from a private European collection. It was eventually sold for $3.5 million at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémi ...

in New York, a record for the artist. In 2008, Eli Broad acquired Ruscha's "liquid word" painting ''Desire'' (1969) for $2.4 million at

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

, which back then was 40 percent under the $4 million low estimate. A navy blue canvas with the word ''Smash'' in yellow, which Ruscha painted in 1963, was purchased by Larry Gagosian for $30.4 million at a 2014 Christie's auction in New York. His word painting ''Hurting the Word Radio #2'' (1964) sold by L.A. collectors Joan and Jack Quinn to an anonymous bidder at Christie's for a record-shattering $52.5 million with fees in 2019. ''Angry Because It’s Plaster, Not Milk'' from 1965, which had been shown at Ferus Gallery that year, was sold by

Halsey Minor Halsey McLean Minor Sr. is an American businessman who is known for founding CNET in 1993, the first comprehensive consumer-facing technology content publisher. He is also the founder or co-founder of the technology companies such as the virtual ...

for $3.2 million at

Phillips de Pury & Company Phillips, formerly known as Phillips the Auctioneers (briefly as Phillips de Pury), is a British auction house. It was founded in London in 1796, and has head offices in London and in New York City. It was owned by the Mercury Group, a Russian ...

, New York, in 2010. From the same series, ''Strange Catch for a Fresh Water Fish'' (1965) made $4.1 million at Christie's New York in 2011. Ruscha's classic prints, published as multiples, command up to $40,000 apiece.

Personal life

Ruscha was married to Danna Ruscha (née Knego) from 1967 to 1972. They remarried in 1987. He has two children, Edward "Eddie" Ruscha Jr. and Sonny Bjornson, a daughter. In the late seventies, Ruscha bought land about ten miles from

Pioneertown, California Pioneertown, California, is an unincorporated community of the Morongo Basin region of San Bernardino's High Desert. The historical town was originally incorporated in 1946 and fell into the hands of San Bernardino County in the late 1960s. The ...

; he later built a house there. According to the

Federal Election Commission The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...

(FEC), Ruscha donated $12,500 to the

presidential campaign President most commonly refers to: * President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

in September 2016.

Legacy

In 2011, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute acquired over seventy photographs by Ruscha as well as his "Streets of Los Angeles" archive, including thousands of negatives, hundreds of photographic contact sheets, and related documents and ephemera. A portion of the material will go to the Getty as a promised gift from the artist. The "Streets of Los Angeles" archive acquired by the Getty Research Institute begins with the photographic and production material for Ruscha's landmark 1966 book ''Every Building on the Sunset Strip'', and includes the original camera-ready three-panel maquette used for the publication. This ongoing project subsequently evolved into a vast photographic archive that spans over four decades and documents many major Los Angeles thoroughfares, including Santa Monica Boulevard,

Melrose Avenue Melrose Avenue is a shopping, dining and entertainment destination in Los Angeles that starts at Santa Monica Boulevard, at the border between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. It ends at Lucile Avenue in Silver Lake. Melrose runs north of ...

, and Pacific Coast Highway, shot in 1974 and 1975, and more than 25 other Los Angeles streets that Ruscha photographed since 2007. In total, the archive comprises thousands of negatives, hundreds of photographic contact sheets, and related documents and ephemera. In 2013, the Harry Ransom Center acquired a Ruscha archive comprising five personal journals filled with preliminary sketches and notes; materials related to the making of his artist's book ''On The Road'' (2010); notes, photographs, correspondence and contact sheets relating to the creation and publication of his many other artist's books; and materials relating to his short films ''Miracle'' (1975) and ''Premium'' (1971); his portfolios; and several art commissions. Ruscha himself donated a substantial portion of the archive to the Ransom Center.News Release — November 13, 2013: Artist Ed Ruscha's Archive Acquired by Harry Ransom Center
Harry Ransom Center, Austin.

References

Sources

* John Coplans, "New Paintings of Common Objects", ''

'', November, 1962. (Illustrations) * Nancy Marmer, "Edward Ruscha at Ferus," ''Artforum'', December, 1964. * Yve-Alain Bois, "Edward Ruscha: Romance with Liquids", Rizzoli Publications, Inc., 1993. * Adam Gopnik, "Ed Ruscha: Paintings", Bowne, Toronto, 2002. * Alexandra Schwartz, ed. Leave Any Information at the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages by Ed Ruscha. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002. * Mark Francis, "New Drawings", Transcontinental Litho-Acme, Montreal, 2006. * David Hickey, "Ed Ruscha: La Mirada Distanciada (The Long View)", Dr. Cantz'sche Druckerei, Ostildern, 2006. * Mary Richards, "Ed Ruscha. Modern Artists series", Tate Publishing, 2008. * Alexandra Schwartz, "Ed Ruscha's Los Angeles", Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010. *

James Ellroy Lee Earle "James" Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, s ...

, Ralph Rugoff, Alexandra Schwartz, Bruce Wagner, Ulrich Wilmes, "ED RUSCHA: FIFTY YEARS OF PAINTING," D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, 2010. * Auping Michael, Prince Richard, "ED RUSCHA: ROAD TESTED", Hatje Cantz, 2011. * Virginia Heckert, Ed Ruscha and Some Los Angeles Apartments, Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2013. * Calvin Tomkins
"Ed Ruscha's L.A.,"
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', July 1, 2013, pp. 48–57.

External links

Oral history interview with Edward Ruscha, Smithsonian Archives of American Art
* ttp://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=01107 Edward Ruscha: An Inventory of His Papers and Art Collection at the Harry Ransom Center* Edward Ruscha Photographs of Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard, 1965–2010. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2012.M.1.
Edward Ruscha photographs of Los Angeles streets, 1974-2010.
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2012.M.2. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ruscha, Edward 1937 births 20th-century American painters 20th-century American printmakers 21st-century American painters American conceptual artists American contemporary painters American male painters American pop artists Art in Greater Los Angeles Artists from Oklahoma Artists from Omaha, Nebraska Honorary Members of the Royal Academy Living people Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Northwest Classen High School alumni Painters from California People from Venice, Los Angeles Photographers from California 20th-century American male artists