From 'Twenty Six Gasoline Stations', 1962 Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruscha was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1937, and came to be one of the most famous American artists of the 20th century. His works often revolve around typography and language, placing his work in the contexts of American Pop and also Conceptual Art.
While perhaps better known for his graphical works, photography played a large part in Ruscha's artistic output and in his explorations of the world around him. He particularly went to great lengths in documenting certain subjects in Los Angeles, such as LA Apartments, the entire of Sunset Strip and parking lots across the city.
He self-published a number of photography books, documenting these subjects, and many of the photographs that he took became the basis for some of his more famous painted works, such as his gas station series.
Recently, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute made a joint acquisition of over seventy photographs by Ruscha, as well as his entire Streets of Los Angeles archive which comprises thousands of negatives, hundreds of photographic contact sheets and documents related to his journeys, studies and photographic output.
The acquisition now makes the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute the leading resource on the photography of Ruscha, and will also make this collection more accessible to the public than ever before.