Overview

Switching to a career in fine art from his dream of becoming a commercial artist, Ed Ruscha first came into prominence in the early 60s with his large word paintings and paintings of commercial icons, such as Twentieth Century Fox and Standard Station, that related in manner and style to the nascent Pop art movement. Drawing on a variety of sources that also included his own drawings, prints and artist's books, Ruscha was often associated with the west coast cool style, but ultimately his work confounded the art world with its sly and elusive sense of deadpan humor, as seen in his series of bird paintings and in the liquid word paintings that rounded out the decade. The Edward Ruscha Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings is a five-volume series under the general editorship of the Gagosian Gallery, and is a co-publication between Gagosian Gallery and Steidl Verlag. Volume One contains 137 paintings printed in full color from Ruscha's student period to the Pop- and Conceptual-inflected word paintings of the 60s. The catalogue includes a comprehensive exhibition history, bibliography and biographical chronology, as well as an appreciation by former Menil Collection director Walter Hopps and an essay exploring Ruscha's pioneering use of language as a subject matter by art historian Yve-Alain Bois of Harvard University. Set in Franklin Book type and printed on acid-free, 170-gram Job Parilux paper, each volume of the catalogue has a stitched binding and a cloth cover with silver-colored embossing protected by an embossed slipcase. Specifications for subsequent volumes are the same. All reproductions were converted to digital form, thanks to which process it has been possible to restore the reproductions of long-lost paintings.

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9783882439724

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Reviews

"The publication of Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonn� of the Works on Paper, Volume 1, a hefty tome that covers the years 1956 through 1976, affords an opportunity to view the Los Angeles artist's developing fascination with what language might look like. The book tracks his movement from an initial interest in signage (the early-'60s drafts for his iconic paintings of the 20th Century Fox logo, the Standard Oil gas-station sign, and ""Annie"" in the comic strip's type) to later images that are highly idiosyncratic, downright poetic concoctions (""Thick Blocks of Musical Fudge"" is the phrase in one 1976 pastel). With two, three, and sometimes four such reproductions many with just a single word) on each page, this massive volume is crowded with text in a way most art books are not; in fact, a quick thumb through suggests something more like a child's dictionary. A welter of emphatically rendered words--gauze, room, range, rut, walk, city, salt, soda, self, squirt, poach, mercy, fever, fix, flood, sin, sure, cement, age, blank, bull, jelly, pudding, ding, dew, pool, radio, vapor, dusty, trust--tumbles out from the page, its audible music registering as readily as its visual allure. A catalogue raisonn� is generally designed to value scholarship and completist accuracy more than aesthetic impact, and these reproductions-true to form-are merely adequate. But the book, in its totality from page to page, can actually be read as much more-as a long synesthetic poem, one that imagines a shape, color, and sound for words and speaks to our profoundest understanding of human expression.--Albert Mobilio ""Bookforum"""

The publication of Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper, Volume 1, a hefty tome that covers the years 1956 through 1976, affords an opportunity to view the Los Angeles artist's developing fascination with what language might look like. The book tracks his movement from an initial interest in signage (the early-'60s drafts for his iconic paintings of the 20th Century Fox logo, the Standard Oil gas-station sign, and ""Annie"" in the comic strip's type) to later images that are highly idiosyncratic, downright poetic concoctions (""Thick Blocks of Musical Fudge"" is the phrase in one 1976 pastel). With two, three, and sometimes four such reproductions many with just a single word) on each page, this massive volume is crowded with text in a way most art books are not; in fact, a quick thumb through suggests something more like a child's dictionary. A welter of emphatically rendered words--gauze, room, range, rut, walk, city, salt, soda, self, squirt, poach, mercy, fever, fix, flood, sin, sure, cement, age, blank, bull, jelly, pudding, ding, dew, pool, radio, vapor, dusty, trust--tumbles out from the page, its audible music registering as readily as its visual allure. A catalogue raisonné is generally designed to value scholarship and completist accuracy more than aesthetic impact, and these reproductions-true to form-are merely adequate. But the book, in its totality from page to page, can actually be read as much more-as a long synesthetic poem, one that imagines a shape, color, and sound for words and speaks to our profoundest understanding of human expression.--Albert Mobilio ""Bookforum""

The publication of Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonn' of the Works on Paper, Volume 1, a hefty tome that covers the years 1956 through 1976, affords an opportunity to view the Los Angeles artist's developing fascination with what language might look like. The book tracks his movement from an initial interest in signage (the early-'60s drafts for his iconic paintings of the 20th Century Fox logo, the Standard Oil gas-station sign, and Annie in the comic strip's type) to later images that are highly idiosyncratic, downright poetic concoctions ( Thick Blocks of Musical Fudge is the phrase in one 1976 pastel). With two, three, and sometimes four such reproductions many with just a single word) on each page, this massive volume is crowded with text in a way most art books are not; in fact, a quick thumb through suggests something more like a child's dictionary. A welter of emphatically rendered words--gauze, room, range, rut, walk, city, salt, soda, self, squirt, poach, mercy, fever, fix, flood, sin, sure, cement, age, blank, bull, jelly, pudding, ding, dew, pool, radio, vapor, dusty, trust--tumbles out from the page, its audible music registering as readily as its visual allure. A catalogue raisonn' is generally designed to value scholarship and completist accuracy more than aesthetic impact, and these reproductions-true to form-are merely adequate. But the book, in its totality from page to page, can actually be read as much more-as a long synesthetic poem, one that imagines a shape, color, and sound for words and speaks to our profoundest understanding of human expression.--Albert Mobilio Bookforum

The publication of Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper, Volume 1, a hefty tome that covers the years 1956 through 1976, affords an opportunity to view the Los Angeles artist's developing fascination with what language might look like. The book tracks his movement from an initial interest in signage (the early-'60s drafts for his iconic paintings of the 20th Century Fox logo, the Standard Oil gas-station sign, and Annie in the comic strip's type) to later images that are highly idiosyncratic, downright poetic concoctions ( Thick Blocks of Musical Fudge is the phrase in one 1976 pastel). With two, three, and sometimes four such reproductions many with just a single word) on each page, this massive volume is crowded with text in a way most art books are not; in fact, a quick thumb through suggests something more like a child's dictionary. A welter of emphatically rendered words-gauze, room, range, rut, walk, city, salt, soda, self, squirt, poach, mercy, fever, fix, flood, sin, sure, cement, age, blank, bull, jelly, pudding, ding, dew, pool, radio, vapor, dusty, trust-tumbles out from the page, its audible music registering as readily as its visual allure. A catalogue raisonné is generally designed to value scholarship and completist accuracy more than aesthetic impact, and these reproductions-true to form-are merely adequate. But the book, in its totality from page to page, can actually be read as much more-as a long synesthetic poem, one that imagines a shape, color, and sound for words and speaks to our profoundest understanding of human expression.--Albert Mobilio Bookforum (02/01/2015)

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