Ed
Ruscha United States
b. 1937 Made
In California,
1971 Lithograph
19 1/4 x 27 1/4 in.
Sweeney Art Gallery Permanent Collection
Gift of Henry W. Coil, Jr.
96.1.23
Ed Ruscha is one of the key players in the exploding Los Angeles art
scene in the second-half of the 20th century. By the early 1960s --
when Warhol was painting his soup cans in New York -- Ruscha had pioneered
pop-styles
with a unique Los Angeles look. Signs, a prominent presence in the
Los Angeles landscape, are a trademark of his paintings. Ruscha's
works draw connections between words, signs, and objects. He attacks
the hierarchy of visual images by presenting commercial signs in their
high-art tradition of painting. The images hover between abstraction
and realism.
