Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting [Hardcover]

Edward Ruscha (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2010

Ed Ruscha is one of the most influential and pioneering American artists of the past half-century. He has forged a richly experimental approach to painting by drawing on his interests in printed matter, graphic design, cinema, photography and the flattened cultural landscape of the American West. While his painting has been consistently distinguished by its acute wit and visual elegance, Ruscha has repeatedly reinvented his artistic vocabulary throughout his career, creating substantial new bodies of work in each decade. Indeed, at one time or another during the past fifty years, he has been alternatively celebrated as one of the first Pop artists; a forerunner of Conceptualism; a latter-day Surrealist; a conceptual landscape painter; and, a pioneer of Postmodernism whose use of language as subject matter has been enormously influential. The breadth and originality of his work continues to elude our attempts to categorise it, but this survey offers a larger framework for reconsidering the extraordinary rigour and vitality of his art. This lavishly illustrated book includes new texts by James Ellroy, Ralph Rugoff, Alexandra Schwartz, Bruce Wagner and Ulrich Wilmes, together with an interview with the artist by Kristine McKenna, an illustrated chronology and an exhibition history.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. His novels include 'L.A. Confidential' and 'The Black Dahlia'. Ralph Rugoff is Director of the Hayward Gallery, London. Alexandra Schwartz is the editor of 'Leave Any Information at the Signal' a collection of Ruscha's writings and interviews. She is a Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Bruce Wagner is an American writer, actor, producer and director based in Los Angeles. Ulrich Wilmes is Senior Curator at Haus der Kunst, Munich. Kristine McKenna is a Los Angeles-based writer who has written extensively on Wallace Berman and West Coast Beat culture.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 191 pages
• Publisher: Hayward Publishing (January 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853322741
• ISBN-13: 978-1853322747
• Product Dimensions: 12.2 x 9.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,229,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Ed Ruscha Retrospective, March 19, 2010

By 

Buffy (Sunnydale) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting (Hardcover)

This is easily the single best book covering the art of Ed Ruscha. It comes in a slipcase which houses the hardcover book. It's a nice, large, horizontal format which perfectly suits Ruscha's original artworks. The paper, color and binding are all first class and you get a great collection of images spanning Ed's fifty year career. This is already on my list of the 10 best art books for 2010. Highly recommended.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Small-size Ruscha, April 6, 2010

By 

Claude Reich (Florianopolis, Brazil and Paris, France) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting (Hardcover)

This book is the catalogue for a traveling Ruscha retrospective (London, Munich and Stockholm)that will run until september 2010.

The introductory essays are of a very high quality and explain the meaning of the works in depth , while avoiding any pedantic cant. The text tackles the importance of signs, of words, of objects, in Ruscha's art and stresses the fact that he completely renewed the idea of landscape painting by producing a body of works that is at the same time abstract and figurative (being inspired in so doing by the early Jasper Johns of the Flags and Targets). The last essay is actually an interview of the artist, which took place in 2007, and in which he sheds new light on his work (especially when he declares that his main source of inspiration was indeed Jasper Johns and not Magritte as was initially believed).

Now, I am slightly disappointed with the reproductions of the works: the book coming in a horizontal and rather small format, the result is a series of smallish illustrations which completely kill the size effect and the color nuances that you always feel when you face a Ruscha painting. The large early work "BOSS", for example, looks uniformally brownish when in reality it is made of various tones of brown and thick impastos. A larger format and better quality plates are really missing here. In my opinion, this book does not come close to Richard Marshall's authoritative 2003 monograph published by Phaidon and still available. Therefore, only 3 stars.