Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) initially gained attention in the early 1960s with paintings, drawings, and photographic books that focused on his fascination with the unique culture, vernacular, and sensibility of his adopted home of Los Angeles. Ruscha has been considered a 'West Coast' artist, and although Los Angeles is undeniably the source of inspiration for his art, the themes he addresses are far-reaching and universal. A growing interest in Ruscha's work in recent years has led to major exhibitions that toured the United States, and a number of individual shows in Europe, which re-evaluate his art in this broader scope. This book is the first monograph on Ruscha's work; it looks with discernment and insightful detail at the prolific and many-faceted career of an artist whose work has been variously described as pop, conceptual, or surrealist; a painter as well as a print-, book-, and filmmaker. The thematic and loosely chronological structure of the book brings to light the diversity and depth of Ruscha's art, while at the same time underlining the continuity and recurrence of themes and ideas within his ever surprising and prolific career.Richard D. Marshall is an independent curator and critic who, during his twenty-year tenure as curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art worked extensively with Ruscha. He is the author of Edward Ruscha Los Angeles Apartments, and has published many books and exhibition catalogues on artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Louise Bourgeois, among others.