ED RUSCHA AND PHOTOGRAPHY by
Whitney Museum of American Art, 2004 First edition, 291 pp., 8 1/4" X 11 1/4" Hardcover
Fine
Since the beginning of Ed Ruscha's career in the late 1950s, photography has been both an inspiration and a source of discovery. This volume thoroughly traces Ruscha's engagement with photography and reveals how his photographic works shed new light on his career as a whole. In preparing this volume and the related exhibition, the artist has worked closely with Whitney Museum curator Sylvia Wolf to share his artistic process and reveal the importance of photography to his art in other mediums. Wolf remarks, "Ed Ruscha's books are among the most original achievements in the art of the 1960s and 1970s, and are the photographic works he is most known for. There have, however, been pictures tucked away in boxes in his studio and photographs that are unpublished or rarely seen, which shed light on Ruscha's career as a whole." This volume considers all facets of Ruscha's photographic production, selecting from the Whitney Museum's exceptional recent acquisition of a major body of the artist's original photographic works and unique early pieces.