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.
7101 Sepulveda Blvd, Van Nuys #20 from the series Parking Lots
signed with the artist's initials and numbered "AP2 ER" on the reverse gelatin silver print image 15 x 15 in. (38.1 x 38.1 cm) sheet 19 7/8 x 16 in. (50.5 x 40.6 cm) Executed in 1967–1999, this work is artist's proof 2 from an edition of 35 plus 10 artist's proofs.
