Artist 101
Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruscha has cast his cool gaze on modern American life since he burst onto the Californian art scene in the early 1960s. He is not easily categorised: his commercial art techniques and interest in the everyday have aligned him with Pop Art, yet his use of language to disrupt and distort the meaning of an image has made him a pioneer of Conceptual Art.
Here, we look at some of the most important moments from an extraordinary career, illustrating with past sold works and an important piece, Gem, which will be offered in Post-War & Contemporary Art X Made in California on 13 September in Los Angeles.
1.
Early Years
Ed Ruscha was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1937 and grew up in Oklahoma City. He started drawing cartoons as a child, and then went on to study art in high school, where he learned about the Dada movement and the commercial printing process. Ruscha was fascinated by California from an early age; soon after graduating from high school, he set off on Route 66 and headed for Los Angeles. There, he enrolled at Chouinard Art Institute (now California Institute of the Arts) to study painting, photography and graphic design.
While at Chouinard, Ruscha started working as a commercial artist for both a printing press and an advertising company. When he began producing his own works, his background in commercial art was evident, and his style aligned with the emerging Pop Art aesthetic. Indeed, his breakthrough was a group exhibition which saw his work featured alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichenstein. New Painting of Common Objects was held at Pasadena Art Museum in 1962 and has become credited as the first exhibition of Pop artists.
Ed Ruscha, Gem, 1968. Estimate: $700,000 - $1,000,000
Ed Ruscha, Gem, 1968. Estimate: $700,000 - $1,000,000
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2.
California Dreams
From the moment Ruscha arrived in Los Angeles in 1956, he immersed himself in its culture, which was irresistibly exciting compared to the Middle America of his childhood. The city has remained his adopted home ever since and has been his lifelong muse. Throughout his career, he has explored the cityscape from different perspectives and using diverse media, from panoramic photographs to abstract paintings of intersecting streets. The Eighties (1980) is quintessential Ruscha: the beauty of a Los Angeles sunset is overlaid by a vaguely ominous cascade of numbers, tracing the arc of the decade.
Hollywood has always held a particular allure for Ruscha. His work reproduces the symbols and trademarks associated with the silver screen, such as the Hollywood sign and the 20th Century Fox logo. He also evokes the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood with imagery reminiscent of old-fashioned film reels, as shown in his series The End. The scratches and imperfections added to the images create a feeling of nostalgia for a bygone era, while the repetition of the words ‘The End’ adds an uneasy sense of decay and decline.
Ed Ruscha, The Eighties, 1980. Sold for $1,008,375 inc. premium
Ed Ruscha, The Eighties, 1980. Sold for $1,008,375 inc. premium
3.
Word Art
Language has always been central to Ruscha’s artistic practice: as early as 1959, he was playing around with words as subject matter. In 1961, he began a series of word paintings each featuring a single word. With a nod to Dadaism, he chose words with "a certain comedic value" and no clear meaning, such as Honk and Oof. These words are depicted in bold fonts and bright colours, as if lifted from an advertisement.
In the 1970s, Ruscha progressed from single words to obscure word combinations, such as Baby Cakes (1974), and longer phrases containing echoes of American vernacular and pop culture, which sound familiar yet strange. Pretty Eyes, Electric Bills (1976) is a jarring mix of the romantic and the mundane; I Tried to Forget to Remember (1986) is a deliberate misquote of the Elvis Presley song I Forgot to Remember to Forget. This latter work is one of many to feature the font Ruscha designed in 1982, Boy Scout Utility Modern.
Ed Ruscha, Hollywood (Engberg 7), 1968.
Ed Ruscha, Hollywood (Engberg 7), 1968.
4.
Artist Books
It was Ruscha’s love of wordplay that led him to create the seminal artist book, Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations (1963). "The title came before I even thought of the pictures," he said, "I like the word ‘gasoline’ and I like the specific quality of ‘twenty-six'". He found the requisite gas stations for the book along Route 66, and photographed them in a deadpan, documentary style. Ruscha self-published a first edition of 400 numbered copies, which were advertised for $3 each in Artforum in 1964. In 2020, one such copy was sold by Bonhams for £5,687.50 inc. premium.
Ruscha produced a further 15 artist books between 1963 and 1978, many of which capture mundane urban scenes in Los Angeles, such as Thirtyfour Parking Lots (1967) and Nine Swimming Pools and A Broken Glass (1968). He is credited with reinventing the artist’s book, and these sparse, enigmatic publications, which somewhat baffled contemporary audiences, have acquired cult status over time. Ruscha’s books have proved influential to generations of artists, not least his peer Bruce Nauman, who burned a copy of Ruscha’s Various Small Fires and Milk (1964), and photographed the process to produce his own work, Burning Small Fires (1968).
Ed Ruscha, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING, NUMBER 169 OF 400 COPIES, Alhambra, California, Cunningham Press, 1962 [but 1963]. Sold for £5,687.50 inc. premium
Ed Ruscha, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING, NUMBER 169 OF 400 COPIES, Alhambra, California, Cunningham Press, 1962 [but 1963]. Sold for £5,687.50 inc. premium
5.
On the Market
During a prolific career spanning seven decades, Ruscha has established himself as a titan of both Pop Art and Conceptual Art. He has enjoyed solo shows at major institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Centre Pompidou, and in 2005 he represented the US at the Venice Biennale. His impact has extended beyond the art world: in 2013 he was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world.
Demand for Ruscha on the secondary market has grown steadily and original works can often command seven-figure sums. In 2022, Bonhams sold The Eighties, a large oil on canvas, for just over $1m inc. premium. Ruscha’s prints typically sell for tens of thousands; Bliss Bucket sold for $50,000 inc. premium in May 2023, while the iconic Hollywood screenprint achieved over $200,000 inc. premium in 2021.
We are delighted to present a Ruscha original work in our upcoming Post-War & Contemporary Art X Made in California auction. Gem (1968) reflects Ruscha’s early preoccupation with single words but is markedly different from the in-your-face immediacy of his Pop art word paintings. This work is pastel and pencil on paper, in which the letters of the word ‘Gem’ appear as delicate 3D structures, resting gently on an obscure surface.
Ed Ruscha, Bliss Bucket, 2010. Sold for $50,000 inc. premium
Ed Ruscha, Bliss Bucket, 2010. Sold for $50,000 inc. premium
Register to bid in Post-War & Contemporary Art X Made in California
Our upcoming auction on 13 September in Los Angeles features works by Ed Ruscha, Shepard Fairey, Lynda Benglis, Robert Arneson, Ernie Barnes, John Register, Wallace Berman, Frederick Hammersley and Mary Corse.
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