born Edward Joseph Ruscha
American, 20th–21st century, male.
Born 16 December 1937, in Omaha (Nebraska).
Painter, engraver, film producer, photographer. Artists’ books.
Conceptual Art.
Ed Ruscha was born in Nebraska and his family later settled in Oklahoma City in 1942. Ruscha trained as a commercial artist at the Chouinard Art Institute (currently known as the California Institute of the Arts) from 1956 to 1960. He then settled in Los Angeles and started working at Carson-Roberts Advertising Agency as a layout artist.
Ruscha started painting in the mid-1950s in a style close to Abstract Expressionism. As his practice evolved, he became associated with the Pop Art movement and was later defined as a Conceptual Artist. Ruscha was greatly influenced by Jasper Johns, Kurt Schwitters, and Marcel Duchamp. Consequently, his work draws heavily on graphics, typography, and cinematography. In addition to his typographical paintings, Ruscha paints and photographs scenes from the American West, Hollywood, suburbia, and the highways and gas stations that accompany them....
