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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Edward Ruscha Catalogue Raisonné of Works on Paper Volume III 1980-1991, edited by Dr. Rainer Crone and Dr. Petrus Shaesberg.
Ed Ruscha's Still pays homage to the artist Clyfford Still. This is a seemingly unlikely coupling until one considers their shared employment of smoldering and primal earth tones. Ruscha subverts his surfaces usually by inserting text, which distracts the viewer from the act of painting. Yet Still's canvases evoke heroic and raw emotion making the paint and his artistry the only subject. Ruscha's mastery of his medium and intense focus on painterly technique can often be overlooked due to the flatness of his surfaces and the humor of his word play. Still stands as a masterful painting on paper by one of today's premier American artists, while revealing Ruscha's feeling of indebtedness to his Abstract Expressionist predecessor.
Ed Ruscha's Still pays homage to the artist Clyfford Still. This is a seemingly unlikely coupling until one considers their shared employment of smoldering and primal earth tones. Ruscha subverts his surfaces usually by inserting text, which distracts the viewer from the act of painting. Yet Still's canvases evoke heroic and raw emotion making the paint and his artistry the only subject. Ruscha's mastery of his medium and intense focus on painterly technique can often be overlooked due to the flatness of his surfaces and the humor of his word play. Still stands as a masterful painting on paper by one of today's premier American artists, while revealing Ruscha's feeling of indebtedness to his Abstract Expressionist predecessor.