Pastel on paper
Text and Language
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on loan
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
National Heritage Memorial Fund
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/edward-ruscha-1882" aria-label="More by Edward Ruscha" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Edward Ruscha</a>
ARTISTS WHO DO BOOKS
ARTIST ROOMS
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
abstraction
artist - non-specific
arts and entertainment
inscriptions
non-representational
symbols and personifications
text
title of work
work and occupations
<p>The white words ‘ARTISTS WHO DO BOOKS’ stand out against an intensely dark black pastel background, giving this drawing a stark appearance. The letters were not outlined by hand but were positioned on the white paper using acetate stencils in the sans serif typeface. Once these inverse stencils were in place, the powdery pastel was rubbed into the paper by hand and with rags to achieve a dense but smooth finish. A fixative was then applied to maintain the crisp division between text and background, before the acetate stencils were peeled back to reveal the bare, white paper surface of the individual letters. In his reliance upon the technical aids of graphic design, Ruscha subverts the common understanding of drawing as a medium of creative skill and self-expression. This mechanical efficiency echoes the subject matter of the drawing: artists producing books of printed material in multiple editions, as opposed to creating unique works of art.</p>
paper unique pastel
21 March 2009 – 13 June 2010
2010-06-13
21 March 2009 – 13 June 2010
2010-06-13
2009-03-21
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2009-03-21
Edward Ruscha
Collection based display
18 September 2010 – 16 April 2011
2011-04-16
18 September 2010 – 20 November 2010
2010-11-20
2010-09-18
Inverness Museum & Art Gallery (Inverness, UK)
http://www.invernessmuseum.com
15 January 2011 – 26 February 2011
2011-02-26
2011-01-15
Swanson Gallery (Thurso, UK)
http://www.highland.gov.uk/leisureandtourism/what-to-see/arts/ar
5 March 2011 – 16 April 2011
2011-04-16
2011-03-05
Timespan (Sutherland, UK)
http://www.timespan.org.uk/
2010-09-18
ARTIST ROOMS 2010: Highland Touring Circuit - Ed Ruscha
Loan-out
28 May 2011 – 29 October 2011
2011-10-29
28 May 2011 – 29 October 2011
2011-10-29
2011-05-28
Wolverhampton Art Gallery (Wolverhampton, UK)
http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk
2011-05-28
ARTIST ROOMS 2011: Ed Ruscha
Loan-out
22 July 2019 – 18 July 2021
2021-07-18
22 July 2019 – 18 July 2021
2021-07-18
2019-07-22
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2019-07-22
AR Ed Ruscha
Collection based display
10 September 2023 – 6 October 2024
2024-10-06
10 September 2023 – 6 January 2024
2024-01-06
2023-09-10
Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA)
7 April 2024 – 6 October 2024
2024-10-06
2024-04-07
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, USA)
2023-09-10
Ed Ruscha: A Retrospective
Loan-out
ARTISTS WHO DO BOOKS
support: 578 × 730 mm
frame: 730 × 874 × 38 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a>
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the <a href="/search?gid=999999967" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">National Heritage Memorial Fund</a> and the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 2008
<div class="text">
<p>The white words ‘ARTISTS WHO DO BOOKS’ stand out against an intensely dark black pastel background, giving this drawing a stark appearance. The letters were not outlined by hand but were positioned on the white paper using acetate stencils in the sans serif typeface. Once these inverse stencils were in place, the powdery pastel was rubbed into the paper by hand and with rags to achieve a dense but smooth finish. A fixative was then applied to maintain the crisp division between text and background, before the acetate stencils were peeled back to reveal the bare, white paper surface of the individual letters. In his reliance upon the technical aids of graphic design, Ruscha subverts the common understanding of drawing as a medium of creative skill and self-expression. This mechanical efficiency echoes the subject matter of the drawing: artists producing books of printed material in multiple editions, as opposed to creating unique works of art. </p>
<p>Ruscha worked as a layout artist at a Los Angeles advertising agency after graduating in fine art from the Chouinard Art Institute in 1960, becoming the production designer for the influential <i>Artforum </i>magazine from 1965–9, under the pseudonym Eddie Russia. The writer Mary Richards has compared Ruscha’s earlier single word paintings and drawings, such as <i>HONK</i> 1962<i> </i>(Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruscha-honk-ar00184" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00184</span></a>), with his late 1970s group of ‘catch-phrase’ drawings, of which <i>ARTISTS WHO DO BOOKS</i> is one example among many in ARTIST ROOMS (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruscha-i-plead-insanity-because-im-just-crazy-about-that-little-girl-ar00053" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00053</span></a>–<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruscha-hollywood-tantrum-ar00059" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00059</span></a>). She says of the ‘catch-phrase’ works: ‘each can be seen as a puzzle or teaser. No longer detached objects, these words are now contextualised in sentences; instead of looking at the patterns of letters, one has to think, read, digest and process.’ (Richards 2008, p.71.) These imperatives are also necessary to understand and interpret the photographic books of conceptual art, pointing to the similarities between the consumption of visual and textual information. In Ruscha’s work, units of information are measured and processed equally – the ‘catch-phrase’ drawings present a written statement in the expected place of a visual image. </p>
<p>In her essay, Richards goes on to state: ‘Legible and authoritative like painted signs, these statements look bold and factual even when the phrases are kooky.’ (Ibid., p.71.) This intentional mixing of visual authority with verbal jokiness is a key characteristic of the ‘catch-phrase’ drawings. These works build on Ruscha’s west-coast pop art style of the early 1960s which established his reputation, replacing the slick visual representations of everyday objects and LA architecture (for example, <i>Standard Study #3</i> 1963, Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruscha-standard-study-3-ar00050" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00050</span></a>) with a precise focus on the imaginative potential of language, while retaining the artist’s trademark playful irony. The critic Dave Hickey has observed of these textual snippets: ‘Like the drawings themselves, these words are at once objects and ideas.’ (Hickey 1998, p.33.)</p>
<p>This phrase drawing is less enigmatic and playful than others in the group, in that it names a specific group of people and is without obvious humour or witticism. The drawing may seem anonymous and detached, but as the writer Richard Marshall explains: ‘In certain of his pastel word drawings, the phrase can be self-referential and contain allusions to actual things. <i>ARTISTS WHO DO BOOKS </i>is an obvious reference to the artist’s own production of books.’ (Richards, p.161.) In the 1960s and early 1970s, Ruscha published sixteen books, including <i>Every Building on the Sunset Strip</i> 1966 (Tate Archive), a deadpan photographic project which became an icon for west-coast American conceptual art. The severely centred and monochromatic design scheme of <i>ARTISTS WHO DO BOOKS </i>is a reference to the black and white photographic publishing output of Ruscha and his contemporaries, which was intended as a sort of non-style, devoid of artistic judgment. This drawing forms a pair with <i>ARTISTS WHO MAKE “PIECES”</i> 1976<i> </i>(Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ruscha-artists-who-make-pieces-ar00057" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00057</span></a>), and together they allude to conceptual art’s undoing of traditional artistic and technical categories. </p>
<p>
<b>Further reading </b>
<br/>Dave Hickey, ‘I Gotta Use Words When I Talk to You. Ed Ruscha’s Drawings’ in <i>Ed Ruscha: New Paintings and a Retrospective of the Works on Paper</i>, exhibition catalogue, Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London 1998, pp.33–7, repr. p.37.<br/>Richard D. Marshall, <i>Ed Ruscha</i>, London and New York 2003, p.161, repr. p.169.<br/>Mary Richards, <i>Ed Ruscha</i>, London 2008, repr. p.7. </p>
<p>Stephanie Straine<br/>March 2010</p>
</div>

Summary
2012-07-03T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>During the mid 1970s, Ruscha made a series of drawings in pastel using pithy phrases against fields of colour. The sentences and phrases evoke American vernacular and slang, draw attention to a particular experience, or recall the excesses of Hollywood culture. In a number of these works Ruscha draws attention to his own work and to the practice of other conceptual artists working at the time. The monochromatic black and white points to Ruscha’s interest in making books, and particularly those he made dedicated to his series of black and white photographs.</p>

Online caption
2009-04-16T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
abstraction artist - non-specific arts and entertainment inscriptions non-representational symbols and personifications text title of work work and occupations