Lot Essay
Executed in 1976, this work will be included in a forthcoming volume of Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper.
"Ruscha evidences the accepted modern artist's traits of fragmentation and isolation, relativism and psychology, and innovation. Each painted, drawn, or photographed subject is plucked from its ecological, social, and moral surroundings to be fastened to the surface of the artwork, like a butterfly to a felt-covered specimen tray;...Ruscha's images are half awake, half in dream."
(P. Plagens, "Ed Ruscha, Seriously," The Works of Edward Ruscha, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1982, p. 35.)
"Ruscha evidences the accepted modern artist's traits of fragmentation and isolation, relativism and psychology, and innovation. Each painted, drawn, or photographed subject is plucked from its ecological, social, and moral surroundings to be fastened to the surface of the artwork, like a butterfly to a felt-covered specimen tray;...Ruscha's images are half awake, half in dream."
(P. Plagens, "Ed Ruscha, Seriously," The Works of Edward Ruscha, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1982, p. 35.)