Ed Ruscha - New Now London Tuesday, December 15, 2020 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Gagosian, Beverly Hills
    Private Collection, Los Angeles (acquired from the above in 1996)
    Los Angeles Modern Auctions, Van Nuys, 10 October 2010 lot, 60
    Private Collection, Los Angeles (acquired at the above sale)
    Los Angeles Modern Auctions, 11 October 2015, lot 218
    Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

  • 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

53

Vowel #58 U

signed and dated 'AUG. 6 1996 Ed Ruscha 1996' on the reverse
oil on Various Small Fires book cover
18 x 14 x .7 cm (7 1/8 x 5 1/2 x 0 1/4 in.)
Executed in 1996.

Estimate
£12,000 - 18,000 

Sold for £22,680

Contact Specialist

Simon Tovey
Specialist, Head of New Now Sale
London
+44 20 7318 4084

New Now

London Auction 15 December 2020