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21/9/2006

Ed Ruscha

Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Ooo: Early Prints

One of today’s most influential and celebrated American artists, Ed Ruscha has been an avid printmaker for more than forty years. Ooo: Early Prints by Ed Ruscha, an intimate exhibition at the Norton Simon Museum, features his early experiments with lithography at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1969. From the single-word Ooo and Eye prints to Hollywood in the Rain, a landscape of the iconic Hollywood sign, this selection of fourteen graphic works demonstrates Ruscha’s interest in language and popular culture and his masterful ability to use text as the subject of his works.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1937, Ruscha moved to Los Angeles in 1956 to study commercial art at the Chouinard Art Institute. His studies, as well as his apprenticeship with a book publisher, introduced him to the fundamentals of working on a press and making prints, and he brought the themes of lettering and illustration to his early paintings. His first work with collaborative printmaking came at the suggestion of art collector Audrey Sabol in 1966, and Ruscha became intrigued by the possibilities of translating ideas and images across different media. This became a primary motif for the artist for many years to come.

Ruscha’s interest in printmaking coincided with the development of several important lithographic workshops in the Los Angeles area. In particular, the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, established by June Wayne in 1960, was a vital center for sharing printmaking techniques and encouraging collaboration between artists. In the tradition of European printing ateliers, Tamarind offered a creative environment where emerging and experienced artists worked side by side on projects. For Ruscha, his fellowship at Tamarind led to a lifelong interest in the expressive possibilities of printmaking.

The works on view in the exhibition demonstrate how the artist uses single words as visual and linguistic “found" objects. Ruscha chooses words that are powerful and suggestive, with an engaging phonetic quality. In works such as Adios (1969), he renders the words as if they were formed from liquid, while in Eye (1969) Ruscha forms the shapes seemingly out of smoke. This trompe l’oeil effect emphasizes their symbolic as well as physical weight (or weightlessness). Through finely drafted art and a rich medium, Ruscha found the means to investigate the transformative quality of language.

Ooo: Early Prints by Ed Ruscha is organized by Michelle Deziel, assistant curator, Norton Simon Museum, with assistance from Christine Knoke, associate curator, Norton Simon Museum.

About the Norton Simon Museum
The Norton Simon Museum is known around the world as one of the most remarkable private art collections ever assembled. Over a thirty-year period 20th-century industrialist Norton Simon (1907-1993) amassed an astonishing collection of European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century and a stellar collection of South and Southeast Asian art spanning 2,000 years. Among the most celebrated works he collected are Branchini Madonna, 1427, by Giovanni di Paolo; Madonna and Child with Book, c. 1502-03, by Raphael; Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, 1633, by Francisco de Zurbara'n; Portrait of a Boy, Presumed to Be the Artist's Son, Titus, c. 1645-50, by Rembrandt van Rijn; Mulberry Tree, 1889, by Vincent van Gogh; Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, 1878-81, by Edgar Degas; and Woman with a Book, 1932, by Pablo Picasso.

Highlights from the Asian collection include the bronze sculptures Buddha Shakyamuni, c. 550, India: Bihar, Gupta period, and Shiva as King of Dance, c. 1000, India: Tamil Nadu; and the gilt bronze Indra, 13th century, Nepal.

In 1974, Norton Simon and a reorganized Board of Trustees assumed control of the Pasadena Art Museum, taking up management of its building and incorporating its important collection of 20th-century European and American art with his own outstanding collection. Highlights from the PAM collection include the Galka Scheyer Blue Four Collection, a body of works by artists Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, Alexei Jawlensky, Vasily Kandinsky and others assembled by art dealer, scholar and muse Galka Scheyer; post-war American art, particularly from Southern California- based artists including John Altoon, Larry Bell, Wallace Berman, Bruce Conner, Richard Diebenkorn, Llyn Foulkes, Sam Francis, George Herms, Robert Irwin, and Ed Ruscha; and a photography collection.

Location: The Norton Simon Museum is located at 411 West Colorado Blvd. at Orange Grove Blvd. in Pasadena, California, at the intersection of the Foothill (210) and Ventura (134) freeways.
Hours: The Museum is open every day except Tuesday, from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and 12:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Friday.
Admission: General admission is $8.00 for adults and $4.00 for seniors. Members, students with I.D., and patrons age 18 and under are admitted free of charge. Admission is free for everyone on the first Friday of every month from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. All public programs, unless stated otherwise, are free. The Museum is wheelchair accessible.

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