Editing Edward Ruscha (section)

===Word paintings===
As with [[Andy Warhol]] and [[Roy Lichtenstein]], his East Coast counterparts, 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.<ref>[http://www.nortonsimon.org/collections/browse_title.php?id=P.1966.06 Ed Ruscha, ''Annie, Poured from Maple Syrup'' (1966)] [[Norton Simon Museum]], Pasadena.</ref> The very first of Ruscha's word paintings were created as oil paintings on paper in Paris in 1961.<ref>[http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5313631 Ed Ruscha: Boulangerie, 1961] [[Christie's]] New York, Works from the Collection of Michael Crichton, 11–12 May 2010, New York.</ref> He began to isolate monosyllables — ACE, BOSS, HONK, OOF — without additional imagery against solid backgrounds.<ref>Jason Farago (7 September 2023), [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/arts/design/ed-ruscha-retrospective-moma.html The Deadpan Laureate of American Art] ''[[New York Times]]''.</ref>

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)<ref>[http://nga.gov.au/internationalprints/Tyler/Default.cfm?MnuID=6&Essay=Ruscha_OOO Ed Ruscha: ''OOO'' and ''Lisp'', 1970] [[National Gallery of Australia]], Canberra.</ref> 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).<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruscha-news-mews-pews-brews-stews-dues-p20295 Ed Ruscha, ''News, Mews, Pews, Brews, Stews, Dues, News'' (1970)] [[Tate]], London.</ref>

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.<ref>[http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/galleries/graphics/artists/ed-ruscha/graphics Ed Ruscha] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101221111012/http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/galleries/graphics/artists/ed-ruscha/graphics |date=2010-12-21 }} [[Marlborough Gallery]].</ref> During the mid-1970s, he made a series of drawings in pastel using pithy phrases against a field of color.<ref>[http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruscha-i-plead-insanity-because-im-just-crazy-about-that-little-girl-ar00053 Ed Ruscha, ''I PLEAD INSANITY BECAUSE I'M JUST CRAZY ABOUT THAT LITTLE GIRL'' (1976)] [[Tate]], London.</ref> He also congreagated with artists including [[George Condo]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Amadour |date=2023-02-15 |title=15 Minutes with George Condo |url=https://lamag.com/art/15-minutes-with-george-condo |access-date=2023-12-31 |website=LAmag - Culture, Food, Fashion, News & Los Angeles |language=en}}</ref> 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).<ref>[http://www.christies.com/lotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=1522251 Ed Ruscha, ''Brave Men Run In My Family'' (1988)] [[Christie's]], 9 June 1999, Los Angeles.</ref> 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]].<ref>[http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/ed-ruscha--november-07-2012 Ed Ruscha, November 17, 2012 - January 12, 2013] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121111065032/http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/ed-ruscha--november-07-2012 |date=November 11, 2012 }} [[Gagosian Gallery]], New York.</ref> Later, words appeared on a photorealist mountain-range series which Ruscha started producing in 1998.<ref>Alastair Sooke (February 9, 2008), [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3671029/Ed-Ruscha-Paintings-maverick-man-of-letters.html Ed Ruscha: Painting's maverick man of letters] ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''.</ref> For these acrylic-on-canvas works, Ruscha pulled his mountain images either from photographs, commercial logos, or from his imagination.<ref>[http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/ed-ruscha-rehab-pump-doctors/5496759/lot/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5496759&sid=4e3d4089-3791-4755-92cd-bee24959a5a6 Ed Ruscha, ''Rehab Pump Doctors'' (1998)] [[Christie's]] Post-War Contemporary Evening Sale, 8 November 2011, New York.</ref>

From 1980, Ruscha started using an [[All caps|all-caps]] typeface of his own invention named "Boy Scout Utility Modern" in which curved letter forms are squared-off (as in the [[Hollywood Sign]])<ref>[http://www.modernamuseet.se/en/Stockholm/Exhibitions/2010/Ed-Ruscha/Fifty-Years-of-Painting/ Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting, May 29 - September 5, 2010] Moderna Museet, Stockholm.</ref> This simple font is radically different from the style he used in works such as ''Honk'' (1962).<ref>[http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/ar_home/4:6685/4968/84352 Ed Ruscha, ''Crossover Dreams'' (1991)] National Galleries of Scotland and Tate</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/134 Ed Ruscha / MATRIX 134, May 1, 1990 - July 7, 1990] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130107010605/http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/134 |date=January 7, 2013 }} Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley.</ref>