Ed Ruscha - Editions & Works on Paper New York Wednesday, February 15, 2023 | Phillips

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  • Edward Ruscha's two Hollywood screenprints made at Cirrus [Editions] in 1970 and 1971 continued his exploration of print with organic materials that he tried contemporaneously with his 1970 portfolio News, Mews, Pews, Brews, Stews, Dues. For this portfolio, printed and published in London, Ruscha selected foodstuffs he purchased in England. For his Cirrus prints, he chose materials (Pepto Bismol and caviar for the first, grape and apricot jam and Metercal for the second) that can be associated by the viewer with the glamour and ardor of life in Southern California. While perhaps dreaded by conservators, the possibility that the prints may alter over time was welcomed by the artist as part of the artwork's natural life.


    Made in L.A. The Prints of Cirrus Editions, The Prints of Cirrus Editions in the Context of Art in Los Angeles, p. 24

     

    Jump to minute 2:30 to hear from printer Jean Milant about the fascinating process he and Ed Ruscha implemented to create Pepto-Caviar Hollywood.

    • Literature

      Siri Engberg 42

    • 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

Property from the Estate of William Murphy, Architect

25

Pepto-Caviar Hollywood (E. 42)

1970
Screenprint with Pepto Bismol and caviar in colors, on Copperplate Deluxe paper, with full margins.
I. 10 x 37 1/2 in. (25.4 x 95.3 cm)
S. 15 x 42 1/2 in. (38.1 x 108 cm)

Signed, dated and numbered 19/50 in pencil, published by Cirrus Editions, Los Angeles (with their blindstamp), framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for $25,200

Contact Specialist

Editions@phillips.com

212 940 1220

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 15 February 2023