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Within the grand theatre of Ed Ruscha’s singular career, Doric is a superb example from the artist’s iconic body of works portraying expertly rendered sfumato columns. One of just five of these crepuscular paintings bearing twilight porticos, Doric is the one Ruscha chose as a model for Brave Man’s Porch, executed the same year and included in the 1997 Whitney Biennial. Doric presents the silhouette of the eponymous column, emerging from a dusky backdrop of vaporous light. Rich in its saturated black tone, the column and edges of the building commingle in a grainy grisailles effect against the hazy glow of sky, creating a gauzy aura of cinematic theatricality.
Starkly departing from the vibrantly hued skies depicted in the sunset paintings of the 1970s and 1980s, Doric and its peers mark the artist’s shift toward a photorealistic tendency, in which the hand of the artist is renounced in favour of a photographic, film noir aesthetic, veritably crackling with kinetic energy. Doric’s thrilling simplicity belies the technical skill with which Ruscha executed this electrifying and seductive painting which, in its visual immediacy has become a hallmark of the artist’s oeuvre. Ruscha creates drama here with the advancing spectre of the Doric column against the pearly glow of sky behind it. Within the three orders of Ancient Greek and later Roman architecture, the Doric column is heavier and more substantial than the Ionic or Corinthian, a weighty presence solidly occupying the foreground of the present work. Against the historical and visual gravity of the column, Ruscha feathers the paint into the impalpable ivory atmosphere.
Detail of the present work.
Detail of the Parthenon, Werner Forman Archive / Bridgeman Images.Among the limited grouping of ‘silhouette’ paintings that first began to appear in the 1980s, Doric exemplifies both the artist’s technical triumph with a spray gun as well as his fascination with cinematography and tropes of the Hollywood film industry. In the artist’s own words, ‘If I’m influenced by the movies, it’s from way down underneath, not just the surface. A lot of my paintings are anonymous backdrops…I have a background, foreground. It’s so simple. And the backgrounds are of no particular character. They’re just meant to support the drama.’i
This allure and magnetism that the silver screen held for Ruscha is further reflected in these paintings of the 1980s in the painterly devices and atmospheric aura that evoke celluloid film reels. Ruscha’s manipulation of paint through the spray gun creates an enchanting mood that seduces the viewer into this incomprehensible scene – a mere clip from a broader narrative, beautiful in its brevity. Indeed, the closely cropped image of the Doric column looms dramatically against the otherwise ethereal atmosphere, creating a sense of impending action, as if the viewer were behind a camera quickly zooming into this ridge of the porch. The column and structure’s solidity against the ghostly glow of silver flecked light blurs indeterminately into vague granularity and creates a wistful and nonspecific nostalgia central to Ruscha’s practice.
Ed Ruscha, Hollywood, Tate, London Photo: Tate © Edward Ruscha Born in Oklahoma City, Nebraska, Ruscha moved to Los Angeles in the 1950s where he took up work as a sign painter and commercial graphic designer, work that allowed him to forge an entirely new artistic vocabulary all his own. Flatly rejecting the ‘artist as tortured genius’ ethos of the Abstract Expressionists, and unconvinced by the Pop Artists, Ruscha looked to individuals whom he admired – for example Marcel Duchamp and Jasper Johns – without ever fully committing to their artistic tendencies. Ruscha’s embrace of a less individualistic style in favour of a more literal and visual ‘hands off’ style is beautifully embodied in the present work.
i Ed Ruscha, cited in Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips, Smoke and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Ruscha, (exh. cat.), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004, p. 21Provenance
Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles
Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica
Gallery Seomi, Seoul
Kukje Gallery, Seoul
Max Lang Gallery, New York
Mark Neuberger Collection, New York
Sotheby's, New York, 16 May 2007, lot 301
Private Collection, Belgium
Phillips, New York, 16 May 2014, lot 236
Acquired at the above sale by the present ownerExhibited
Seoul, Gallery Seomi, Edward Ruscha, 30 July - 20 August 1996
Literature
Robert Dean and Lisa Turvey, eds., Edward Ruscha Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings Volume Five: 1993-1997, New York, 2012, no. P1996.09, p. 254 (illustrated, p. 255)
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.
22
Doric
signed, titled and dated 'Ed Ruscha 1996' on the reverse; titled 'Doric' on the overlap; signed, titled and dated 'EDWARD RUSCHA - 1996 ''DORIC''' on the stretcher
acrylic on canvas
137.5 x 101.9 cm (54 1/8 x 40 1/8 in.)
Painted in 1996.
Estimate
£400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £441,000
Kate Bryan
Specialist, Head of Evening Sale
+44 7391 402741
kbryan@phillips.com
Olivia Thornton
Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Europe
+44 20 7318 4099
othornton@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
London Auction 15 October 2021
1
Serge Attukwei Clottey
Fashion icons
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ‡
Sold for £340,200
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2
Flora Yukhnovich
Tondo
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000 ♠
Sold for £529,200
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3
Jadé Fadojutimi
Myths of Pleasure
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ♠
Sold for £1,172,000
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4
Emily Mae Smith
Invisible Woman
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000
Sold for £930,000
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5
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones
Pattern Makers
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡♠
Sold for £302,400
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6
Issy Wood
Eggplant / car interior
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡♠
Sold for £327,600
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7
Cinga Samson
Hliso Street IV
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡
Sold for £239,400
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8
Sanya Kantarovsky
No Eyes
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
Sold for £390,600
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9
Shara Hughes
Night Picket
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡
Sold for £869,500
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10
Reggie Burrows Hodges
For the Greater Good
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡
Sold for £441,000
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11
Milton Avery
Bird by Wild Sea
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000
Sold for £207,900
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12
Milton Avery
White Gull Resting
Estimate £70,000 - 100,000
Sold for £189,000
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13
Lucas Arruda
Untitled
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡
Sold for £352,800
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14
Marlene Dumas
The Believer
Estimate £1,600,000 - 2,400,000 ‡♠
Sold for £1,656,000
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15
Titus Kaphar
Holy Absence II
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
Sold for £315,000
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16
Albert Oehlen
Retrospektiv
Estimate £1,100,000 - 1,500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £1,353,500
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17
Sigmar Polke
Negerplastik
Estimate £2,000,000 - 3,000,000 ‡
Sold for £3,047,500
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18
Günther Förg
Ohne Titel
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ‡♠
Sold for £615,400
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19
André Butzer
Chips und Pepsi und Medizin (Das Glück)
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ‡♠
Sold for £403,200
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20
Katharina Grosse
Ohne Titel
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡♠
Sold for £277,200
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21
Avery Singer
Untitled
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000
Sold for £403,200
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22
Ed Ruscha
Doric
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £441,000
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23
Yayoi Kusama
Silver Nets (EOKI)
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,500,000 ‡
Sold for £1,837,500
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24
Damien Hirst
N-(9-Acridinyl) Maleimide
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡♠
Sold for £736,400
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25
Damien Hirst
Precious Moments
Estimate £1,000,000 - 1,500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £990,500
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26
Gilbert & George
Day
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ‡♠
Sold for £453,600
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27
Chris Ofili
Triple Beam Dreamer
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £1,014,700
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28
Max Ernst
Pyramid Lake
Estimate £550,000 - 750,000 ‡♠
Sold for £627,500
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29
Max Ernst
Matin et soir
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £226,800
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30
Max Ernst
Homme (Spezialpreis für die Kurzfilmtage in Oberhausen)
Estimate £65,000 - 85,000 ‡♠
Sold for £151,200
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31
Max Ernst
Euklid
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡♠
Sold for £239,400
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32
Jean Fautrier
I'm falling in Love
Estimate £800,000 - 1,200,000 ‡♠
Sold for £760,600
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33
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva
Champs de Sainte-Claire
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
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34
Sean Scully
Green Yellow Figure
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £567,000
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35
George Condo
The Showgirl
Estimate £1,000,000 - 1,500,000 ‡
Sold for £1,232,500
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36
Ed Ruscha
Spots
Estimate £180,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £252,000
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37
David Hammons
Elephant Dung
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £226,800
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38
Mimmo Rotella
Il Jazz
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡♠
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39
This lot is no longer available.
40
Mickalene Thomas
Portrait of Lili in Black and White
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £252,000
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41
Andy Warhol
Lenin
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £428,400
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42
Richard Prince
My Life as a Weapon
Estimate £450,000 - 650,000 ‡
Sold for £453,600
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43
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡♠
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44
Cory Arcangel
Photoshop CS: 84 by 66 inches, 300 DPI, RGB, square pixels, default gradient, "Blue, Red, Yellow" (turn reverse on), mousedown y= 1550 x=18400, mouseup y=300 x=150
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000
Sold for £233,100
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