Ed Ruscha - Contemporary Art Day Sale New York Friday, May 15, 2015 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Leo Castelli Gallery, New York
    Stephen Mazoh & Co., New York
    Christie's, New York, Contemporary Art Part II, November 2, 1984, lot 193
    Collection of the artist
    Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London
    James R. Hedges, IV
    CRG Gallery, New York

  • Exhibited

    New York, Leo Castelli Gallery, Ed Ruscha: Drawings, February 3 - 17, 1973
    San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Works of Edward Ruscha, March 25 - May 23, 1982, then traveled to New York, Whitney Museum of American Art (July 8 - September 5, 1982), Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery (October 4 - November 28, 1982), San Antonio, San Antonio Museum of Art (December 27, 1982 - February 20, 1983), Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (March 17 - April 17, 1983)
    London, Anthony d'Offay Gallery, Ed Ruscha: New Paintings and a Retrospective of Works on Paper, June 26 - July 30, 1998
    Aspen, Aspen Art Museum, Powder, February 25 - April 11, 1999

  • Literature

    E. Ruscha, Guacamole Airlines and Other Drawings by Edward Ruscha, New York: Abrams, 1980, pl. 29 (illustrated)
    P. Plagens, D. Hickey, The Works of Edward Ruscha, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 1982, pl. 62 (illustrated)
    N. Wakefield, D. Hickey, Ed Ruscha: New Paintings and a Retrospective of Works on Paper, exh. cat., Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London, 1998, p. 31 (illustrated)
    F. Bonami, Powder, exh. cat., Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, 1999, p. 39 (illustrated)
    R.D. Marshall, Ed Ruscha, London: Phaidon, 2003, p. 146 (illustrated)
    L. Turvey, Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper, Volume 1: 1956-1976, Gagosian Gallery, New York & Yale University Press, New Haven, 2014, p. 320, no. D1972.45 (illustrated)

  • Artist Biography

    Ed Ruscha

    American • 1937

    Quintessentially American, Ed Ruscha is an L.A.-based artist whose art, like California itself, is both geographically rooted and a metaphor for an American state of mind. Ruscha is a deft creator of photography, film, painting, drawing, prints and artist books, whose works are simultaneously unexpected and familiar, both ironic and sincere.

    His most iconic works are at turns poetic and deadpan, epigrammatic text with nods to advertising copy, juxtaposed with imagery that is either cinematic and sublime or seemingly wry documentary. Whether the subject is his iconic Standard Gas Station or the Hollywood Sign, a parking lot or highway, his works are a distillation of American idealism, echoing the expansive Western landscape and optimism unique to postwar America.

    View More Works

Ο◆135

Whiskers, Splinters

1972
gunpowder on paper
11 1/2 x 29 in. (29.2 x 73.7 cm)
Signed and dated "E. Ruscha 1972" lower left; further titled "'WHISKERS SPLINTERS'" on the reverse.

Estimate
$150,000 - 200,000 

Sold for $221,000

Contact Specialist
Kate Bryan
Head of Day Sale
New York
+ 1 212 940 1267

Contemporary Art Day Sale

New York Day Sale 15 May 2015 11am