Founder rate ends 9th September.

We’re rebuilding theartsdesk to secure the future of real arts journalism. Be part of it by subscribing: if you do it now, the founders’ rate of just £40 yearly is yours FOR LIFE!

SUBSCRIBE NOW 

Art Gallery: Ed Ruscha

Eight iconic American images from a West Coast master

share this article

Standard Station: 'The Hayward exhibition achieves the rare feat of making you actually like the artist as a human being'
Standard Station: 'The Hayward exhibition achieves the rare feat of making you actually like the artist as a human being'
Courtesy Private Collection
Half a century of Ed Ruscha's paintings are on show at the Hayward Gallery, London. Mark Hudson reviews elsewhere in theartsdesk the display of Los Angeles's most famous painter, "an aspect of American art about which we’ve remained remarkably ignorant".


Click on an image to open the full view.

[bg|/ART/mark_hudson/Ed_Ruscha]

All pictures copyright Ed Ruscha 2009, image credits Paul Ruscha except where marked.

  • Oof, 1962 - 1963, Courtesy the Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • Securing the last letter, 1964, Courtesy Collection of Emily Fisher Landau, New York.
  • The Old Tech-Chem Building, 2003, Courtesy The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica
  • Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1965-68, Courtesy Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, photo credit Lee Stalsworth
  • Back of Hollywood, 1977 Courtesy Collection of Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon
  • Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, 1962, Courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
  • Untitled, 1986, Courtesy James Corcoran Gallery, Los Angeles
  • Talk Radio, 1988, Courtesy the collection of Joe Goode and Hiromi Katayama
Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting is at the Hayward Gallery until 10 January 2010. Information and reservations here.

The most an artist can do is start something and not give the whole story – that’s where mystery begins

rating

0

explore topics

share this article

Help secure the future of arts journalism

In this era of algorithmic recommendation, opaquely sponsored content and AI slop, theartsdesk’s mission to preserve real journalistic and critical values has never been more important.

If you like what you see here, please join us 
in this mission.

Subscribing to the site will help us in our coming 
redesign and expansion.


If you do this before the 9th September this will be at our guaranteed founder’s rate: 
your subs will never increase again.

Subscribe now for £5 per month. 
or yearly for just £40.

Or if you simply want to support us with a one-off donation, you can do so here.

more visual arts

Ritualistic performances and evocations of fertility goddesses
The mood is blue, but profundity is in short supply
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
A frieze of iPad pictures that sends you hurrying for the door