Ed Ruscha's work has been associated equally with American Pop Art and with Conceptual Art.

His use of words and typography links him with both these movements, but his sensibility is much closer to that of the poet, using words to conjure up a complex of images and associations. It is a sensibility honed by his training in commercial graphic art and by his life in Los Angeles, city of the film industry, of ubiquitous advertising hoardings and of the freeway. The three drawings in question are fine examples of Ruscha's ability to make pictorial and internalized images out of words floating in largely monochrome fields of colour.


Back to top