Ed Ruscha - Editions New York Tuesday, June 8, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Literature

    Walker Art Center/Siri Engberg 78

  • Catalogue Essay

    In 1974 Lorillard, a division of Loews Theaters (and makers of Kent Cigarettes) commissioned twelve artist's to create prints for a portfolio to celebrate the Bicentennial of American independence. Completed in 1975, and exstensively toured through 1976, Lorillard then gifted over 100 portfolios to museums and institutions accross the country. Each artist was answering the question "What does independence mean to me?" Ruscha wrote "somewhere there should be a stamp or impression (I get the impression) that America has made herself. And isn't she her best product?"
     

  • 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

253

America, Her Best Product, from Spirit of Independence: Kent Bicentennial portfolio

1974
Lithograph in colors, on Rives BFK paper, the full sheet,
S. 31 7/8 x 23 1/2 in. (81 x 59.7 cm)
signed, dated and numbered 73/125 in pencil on the reverse (there were also 5 artist's proofs), published by Lorillard Co., New York, a few soft handling creases, a tear at upper right, minor creasing in the corners, hinge remains and minor skinning at the reverse of the upper corners, otherwise in good condition, framed.

Estimate
$8,000 - 12,000 

Editions

8 June 2010
New York