Ed Ruscha - Editions & Works on Paper New York Tuesday, October 24, 2023 | Phillips

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  • “When I drew 1984 – in 1967–  I was thinking about the book and the talk at the time that Big Brother was watching you. I put that together with these new funny numerals on my check stubs, and I wondered why they had invented this new vocabulary of numbers. I thought we may never reach that number on our calendar because we might hit some Armageddon. I always liked the idea that it was a few years before its time that I had made this statement in this work. Beyond that, it was fun to make. When 1984 did arrive, I remember the Olympics were here, and we all went to a spa in Montana to get away because we thought the city was going to explode with traffic. The exact opposite happened—there was nothing. The freeways were empty, and no one could figure out why. Either people didn’t show up, or they stayed put.”


    —Ed Ruscha, “The Future of Then,” LA Magazine, 2014

    • Literature

      Gemini G.E.L. 57
      Siri Engberg 6

    • 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

124

1984 (G. 57, E. 6)

1967
Lithograph in colors with hand-coloring, on Arches paper, with full margins.
I. 14 x 17 7/8 in. (35.6 x 45.4 cm)
S. 20 x 25 in. (50.8 x 63.5 cm)

Signed, dated and numbered 11/60 in pencil (there were also 16 artist's proofs on Barcham Green paper), published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles (with their blindstamps), framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$15,000 - 25,000 

Sold for $19,050

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Editions@phillips.com
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Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 24-26 October 2023