Provenance
Leo Castelli Gallery, New York (LC#ER332); Fred Hoffman Gallery, Inc., Los Angeles; Collection of Jay Chiat, Los Angeles
This work will be included in the forthcoming Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume Four: 1988-1992, edited by Robert Dean and Lisa Turvey
Catalogue Essay
"Some [words] are found, ready made, some are dreams, some come from newspapers.They are finished by blind faith. No matter if I've seen it on television or read it in the newspaper, my mind seems to wrap itself around that thing until it's done." (Ed Ruscha inconversation with Jana Sterbak ‘Premeditated: An Interview with Ed Ruscha' in Real Life Magazine, Summer 1985)
While some of the giants of 20th century art like Pablo Picasso and John Baldessari have occasionally incorporated text in their work, Ed Ruscha has devoted the near entirety of his oeuvre to language. Dating back to the early 1960s, isolated words against a variety of backgrounds have been a hallmark of the conceptual artist's sensibility.The present lot offers the viewer the imposing idiom "That Was Then This Is Now", a phrase Ruscha must have encountered when it was plastered across Los Angeles as the title for a 1985 film staring Emilio Estevez.The movie, based on a 1971 novel by Susan Eloise Hinton, is a tragic, coming of age tale about teenage foster brothers caught up in the violent world of drugs and gangs. Like the film's perplexing ending, Ed Ruscha's ambiguous words leave the viewer with more questions than answers.What was then? What is now?The implied dichotomy between the before and after of a pivotal incident, event, or moment in time forces the viewer to re-evaluate their ontological significance.The power of Ed Ruscha's art lies in his ability to not only create visually arresting works but to also conceptually offer his audience a plethora of potential unstable meanings. By its long horizontal shape,monumental size and subject matter combining imagery and bold faced text, That Was Then This Is Now is akin to the giant commercial billboards which populate the Los Angeles freeways.Though born in Oklahoma City, Nebraska, Ruscha moved to Los Angeles in 1956 where he worked as a sign painter and graphic designer. In addition, his passion for comic strips and book design fed his fascination for overlaying text on images of which the present lot is a perfect example. Beautifully rendered and meticulously executed, the bold, white lettering of the apocalyptic slogan THAT WAS THEN THIS IS NOW emerges from a grey night sky where the moonlight shines through the clouds.The influence of the Los Angeles landscape and lifestyle is evident as is the art of his famous peers from the Ferus Gallery. Using Pop Art as his springboard, Ruscha has, over nearly half a century, developed a unique visual vocabulary based around the vernacular of text.‘'When I first became attracted to the idea of being an artist,painting was the last method, it was an almost obsolete, archaic form of communication. I felt newspapers, magazines, books,words, to be more meaningful than what some damn oil painter was doing.'' (Ed Ruscha in conversation with Neal Benezra, Ed Ruscha:Painting and Artistic License,Washington, D.C. 2000, p. 145)
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.
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11

Ed Ruscha

That Was Then This Is Now

1989
Oil on canvas.
106.7 x 243.8 cm. (42 x 96 in).
Signed and dated 'Ed Ruscha 1989' on the reverse; signed, titled and dated 'Ed Ruscha 1989 That Was Then This Is Now' on the stretcher.

Estimate
£600,000 - 800,000

Sold for £713,250

Contemporary Evening Sale

29 June 2009, 7pm
London

1
Gert and Uwe Tobias
Untitled
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ♠
Sold for £32,450
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2
Sergej Jensen
Odd Couple
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡♠
Sold for £26,250
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3
Barry McGee
Untitled
Estimate £15,000 - 20,000
Sold for £22,500
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4
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (large colored butterfly white background 10 wings)
Estimate £70,000 - 100,000 ≠†
Sold for £145,250
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5
Wim Delvoye
Clio
Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 ♠
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6
James Turrell
Acro, Blue
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000
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7
Mario Merz
Senza titolo (Una somma reale è una somma di gente)
Estimate £180,000 - 250,000
Sold for £217,250
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8
Florian Maier-Aichen
Untitled
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ≠♠†
Sold for £51,650
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9
Roni Horn
Seen in the distance
Estimate £35,000 - 45,000
Sold for £82,850
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10
Andy Warhol
Five Guns
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000
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11
Ed Ruscha
That Was Then This Is Now
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000
Sold for £713,250
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12
Richard Prince
Spiritual America IV
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
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13
Jack Goldstein
Untitled
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Sold for £121,250
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14
Thomas Schütte
Stahlfrau Nr. 7 (Steel Woman no. 7)
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ♠
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15
John Chamberlain
Mr. Moto
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
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16
Robert Rauschenberg
Wolf Wood (Urban Bourbon series)
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
Sold for £289,250
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17
Anselm Reyle
Untitled
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ♠
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18
Jeff Koons
Mermaid Troll
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
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19
Zhang Xiaogang
Untitled
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000 ≠†
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20
Ed Ruscha
Doric
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000
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21
Gerhard Richter
Schatten 6
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡♠
Sold for £133,250
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22
Wilhelm Sasnal
Cemetery
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡♠
Sold for £37,250
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23
Kehinde Wiley
Passing/Posing - St. Helena
Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 ‡
Sold for £51,650
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24
Robert Indiana
Art
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 Ω
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25
Yan Pei-Ming
Timonier 009
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
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26
Yoshitomo Nara
Your Dog
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27
Yue Minjun
Untitled
Estimate £250,000 - 300,000 ≠†
Sold for £421,250
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28
Alighiero Boetti
Tutto
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29
Kenneth Noland
Shift
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30
Tal R
Fungusia
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31
Anselm Reyle
Untitled
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ≠♠†
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32
Feng Zhengjie
Chinese Portrait P Series 2006 No. 2
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ≠†
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33
Inka Essenhigh
Pegasus
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34
Michael Raedecker
ins and outs
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35
Wang Guangyi
Art Go
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36
Damien Hirst
Beautiful Lazarides Inc. Auction Spinny Thingy Where Will It All End, Money For Old Rope, Buy This You Bugger, Its Got Kline Blue Bloody Splashes In It For Fuck's Sake, Love You Really Painting (with xxxxx)
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡♠
Sold for £193,250
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37
Jonathan Meese
Die Verschworung des Dr. Pottsau
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38
Jitish Kallat
Collidonthus
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39
Wim Delvoye
Cabinet (Installation of 14 Delft sawblades and 2 Delft gas canisters)
Estimate £55,000 - 65,000 ♠
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40
Ashley Bickerton
Herr Schoendorff
Estimate £15,000 - 20,000
Sold for £51,650
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Contemporary Evening Sale

29 June 2009, 7pm London

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Provenance

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Ed Ruscha

11

Ed Ruscha

That Was Then This Is Now

Contemporary Evening Sale

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29 June 2009, 7pm
London