Paula Scher, USA Airline Routes, 2020. Editions & Works on Paper New York.
Rich and varied, the visual lexicon of American art is as diverse as its people — and printmaking is at its core. A democratic and collaborative medium, it is embedded in American visual culture from fine art to commercial imagery and beyond. On offer in our upcoming Editions & Works on Paper auction in New York, this selection celebrates that legacy along with our country. Here, we highlight a few works from the selection that offer a powerful look at how artists continue to stamp, press, and re-imagine the American story.
From Nebraska to California with Ed Ruscha and Cirrus Editions
Ed Ruscha, Made in U.S.A. or America, Her Best Product, from Kent Bicentennial Portfolio: Spirit of Independence, 1974–75. Editions & Works on Paper New York.
Included in the 1975 Kent Bicentennial Portfolio: Spirit of Independence, Ed Ruscha’s Made in U.S.A. or America, Her Best Product, from Kent Bicentennial Portfolio: Spirit of Independence addresses national identity not through straightforward patriotism, but by examining the commercial forces shaping American values. Alongside 11 other prominent contemporary artists responding to the prompt of what independence meant to them, Ruscha employed the clean Futura typeface to transform a ubiquitous retail label into a keen observation of mass culture and consumerism.
This work typifies Ruscha’s distinctly American visual language, which was fostered and propelled by Jean Milant’s Cirrus Gallery & Cirrus Editions, an institution that redefined contemporary printmaking by championing West Coast artists. By trading traditional technical purity for bold experimentation with unconventional materials and graphic formats, Cirrus became a vital engine for Los Angeles’ artistic community, forever reshaping the evolution of American print media and its reflection of the national ethos.
Robert Rauschenberg: Charting America “inch by inch”
Robert Rauschenberg, Signs, 1970. Editions & Works on Paper New York.
Viewed together, Robert Rauschenberg’s Signs (1970) and Suite 1 (America Mix-16) (1983) capture both the seismic historical shifts in American culture and its quiet, everyday realities. In Signs — originally conceived as a cover image for Newsweek magazine — Rauschenberg functions as what Walter Hopps called a “citizen artist” by collaging iconic media imagery from popular culture to chronicle the struggles and triumphs that redefined American identity during the tumultuous 1960s. Formerly in the collection of pioneering art dealer Leo Castelli, this particular example of the print is deeply intertwined with the history of American art and visual culture.
Suite 1 (America Mix-16) represents a more intimate, geographic exploration, representing Rauschenberg’s ambition to document the United States through his own lens. Utilizing the 19th-century photogravure process to capture minute details and deep tonal ranges, this suite finds an unconventional, raw beauty in ordinary, often weathered American subjects, like abandoned trucks and darkened neon signs. Together, these two works demonstrate how Rauschenberg blended found media and his own original photography to construct a nuanced portrait of 20th-century America — one that balances the grand, collective memories of national history with the gritty, textured fragments of its everyday sights.
Robert Rauschenberg, Suite 1 (America Mix-16), 1983. Editions & Works on Paper New York.
Robert Indiana: Midwestern beacon
Robert Indiana, The American Dream, 1997. Editions & Works on Paper New York.
Robert Indiana’s The American Dream is a comprehensive, retrospective self-examination that distills the nation’s optimism, ambition, and underlying complexities into 30 vibrant screenprints. Describing himself as an “American painter of signs,” Indiana masterfully repurposed the visual vocabulary of highways, advertisements, and urban neon into enduring cultural icons of postwar Pop Art. By combining image, text, and poetry, this ambitious graphic portfolio uses familiar words and bold graphics to investigate the enduring mythology of American success. The resulting imagery operates on a dual plane summarized by what Indiana called his “three C’s” — commemorative, celebratory, and colorful — while simultaneously delivering a cautionary critique of modern consumerism and national identity.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s superheroes
After Jean-Michel Basquiat, Piano Lesson, from Superhero Portfolio, 1982–87/2022. Editions & Works on Paper New York.
Piano Lesson utilizes the iconography of Batman and Robin to subvert the traditional, mass-produced visual language of American popular culture. Part of Basquiat’s Superhero Portfolio, the work reinterprets these comic book fixtures through the artist’s signature style of vibrant colors, anatomical drawings, and expressive, gestural marks. By juxtaposing the nostalgia of childhood comic book heroes with his own real and imagined experiences, Basquiat transforms symbols from popular culture into a complex commentary on race, identity, and socio-political reality, and highlights the important role superheroes play as star characters of American mythology. This multi-layered approach showcases an artistic practice that, while evoking a childlike spontaneity, demonstrates a highly sophisticated command over composition and surface. Ultimately, Piano Lesson exemplifies how Basquiat successfully integrated the raw energy of street art with the commercial imagery of the United States to reshape the evolving dialogue around contemporary American art.
Andy Warhol: If the shirt fits...
Andy Warhol, Van Heusen (Ronald Reagan), from Ads, 1985. Editions & Works on Paper New York.
Andy Warhol’s Van Heusen (Ronald Reagan) from his 1985 Ads portfolio exemplifies his practice of blurring the boundaries between fine art, commerce, and mass media. By isolating a 1953 dress shirt advertisement featuring a pre-presidential Reagan, Warhol mines the intersecting American obsessions of celebrity, status, and political power. This potent choice of source material suggests that American political identity has long been shaped by commercial forces and marketing. Through his signature Pop aesthetic, Warhol elevates ubiquitous advertising imagery into a space for critical contemplation, challenging viewers to examine the visual culture ingrained in the nation's collective consciousness. Ultimately, the print redefines the evolving visual language of the United States by demonstrating how the aesthetics of the everyday consumer landscape dictate both cultural and political reality.
Roy Lichtenstein’s “crystalized symbol” of America
Roy Lichtenstein, I Love Liberty, 1982. Editions & Works on Paper New York.
Roy Lichtenstein’s 1982 screenprint I Love Liberty reimagines the Statue of Liberty through his signature visual language of bold contours, vibrant colors, and dynamic composition. Produced as a fundraising print for the progressive civic advocacy group People for the American Way, the artwork emerged from a movement celebrating democratic ideals in the early 1980s. Lichtenstein’s instantly recognizable stylized graphic language isolates and interrogates a ubiquitous national icon, filtering this monument through the aesthetic of mass communication to bridge popular culture with a deeper meditation on patriotism, representation, and the inherent fragility of American ideals. At its core, I Love Liberty demonstrates how the evolving visual language of the United States and its artists can transform a static monument of national pride into an active, contemporary site for defining national identity.
And to that end, Mel Bochner has a few words.
Mel Bochner, It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This, 2014. Editions & Works on Paper New York.
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