The Flickr Americanartist Image Generatr

Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955) - Untitled (Exquisite Corpse Rollerblades). (2022) In the Pinault Collection. Shown at the temporary exhibition "Corps et Âmes [Bodies and Souls]" at Collection Pinault, Bourse de Commerce, Paris.

An exquisite corpse is an old-fashioned parlour game in which a person starts a drawing, folds it to hide what has been drawn and passes the sheet on to the next person. When all the game players have contributed, the final result is revealed, often to hilarious effect.

Writing in The Brooklyn Rail, Amber Jamilla Musser offer some helpful observations about this picture.

"In Untitled (Exquisite Corpse Rollerblades) (2022) a blonde woman with bangs and bouffant hairdo reclines on a mint pillow, eyes looking toward stardust swirling above her in a pink bedroom. Below her neck, her loungewear and skin make a study in grays accented with black puffs of fur at the shoulders and wrists while her long fingers and pink nails idly consider a necklace that resembles bones. At her waist, the portrait shifts perspective to show a crosshatched nude bottom facing the viewer, but in the final black-and-white section we see legs and feet firmly ensconced in roller blades, no bedroom or any other backdrop in sight. Read from left to right, each vertical cleavage announces a distinct painterly approach to the subject with its own emotional and representational baggage. The lush, dark realism of the first two segments emphasizes the imaginative possibilities of going more deeply into blackness, of revealing intelligence and complexity. The third segment offers a twist in both posture and approach. Its fine lines recall early modern anatomical drawings, not only because of its emphasis on musculature, but also because it focuses on that overdetermined site of scientific fixation—the buttocks of a Black woman. The flat style of the fourth segment, meanwhile, slides toward the comic in its extravagant attention to the incongruous rollerblades—footwear not usually associated with lying in bed."


For another picture by Kerry James Marshall click here

Ann Pibal’s LDFSX (2008), on view at the Hirshhorn Museum, is a striking exploration of geometry, balance, and color theory that challenges our perception of space. Painted in acrylic on panel, this 45 x 60 inch work features a hypnotic network of orange and white lines intersecting across a black background, creating an intricate dance of form and rhythm that evokes both architecture and abstraction.

Pibal’s composition is built on a minimalist grid structure, where diagonal and horizontal lines intersect, overlap, and create dynamic shapes that seem to push and pull at the boundaries of the canvas. The bold orange lines exude a vibrant energy against the stark black, while the white lines add a sense of balance and structure, guiding the eye through the work’s shifting planes.

Installed on a vivid orange wall, the painting’s chromatic tension extends into the gallery itself, blurring the line between artwork and environment. The interplay between the painting’s internal geometry and its external setting enhances its immersive quality, inviting viewers to engage with the piece both visually and physically.

LDFSX embodies Pibal’s distinctive approach to painting, where precision meets spontaneity and order meets complexity. The work reflects her interest in modernist ideals while embracing contemporary design sensibilities. Visitors at the Hirshhorn are encouraged to lose themselves in the painting’s rhythmic interplay of lines, discovering new angles and perspectives with each step.

This installation exemplifies the Hirshhorn Museum’s commitment to presenting innovative contemporary art that invites reflection, conversation, and delight in the power of form and color.

Bold, immersive, and unapologetically confrontational, this typographic environment showcases Barbara Kruger’s signature visual language, transforming a commercial escalator into a platform for social critique. The towering words “MONEY MAKES MONEY” streak diagonally across the red escalator fascia in thick, white uppercase letters. Beneath them, Kruger's floor-to-ceiling text—sharp and declarative—blankets the walls and flooring in her unmistakable aesthetic: black, white, and red, all caps, all command.

This work functions like a visual bullhorn. You don’t just view it—you’re engulfed in it. As visitors ride the escalator or walk the floor, they are literally walking on, past, and through messages that demand reflection. Kruger’s phrases, including “FORGET” and “AS YOU DO SO, SO SHALL YOU BE A THOUSAND TIMES,” cut into the viewer's psyche like editorial footnotes on consumerism, identity, and memory. It’s not background art—it’s foreground activism.

Kruger, a conceptual artist whose work emerged from the convergence of graphic design, feminism, and political critique, uses her installations to question the status quo. In this image, the strategic placement of slogans along the moving escalator accentuates the work’s commentary on capital and mobility. The phrase “MONEY MAKES MONEY” becomes more than a statement—it becomes a loop, both physically as the escalator moves and symbolically as capitalism feeds itself.

There’s irony baked into the installation’s location as well. By situating this piece in a retail or museum space, Kruger prompts viewers to consider their roles in systems of commodification. Are they participating? Observing? Resisting? The clean, corporate surroundings serve as a foil to the raw urgency of her typography, magnifying the message’s subversiveness.

The typeface, Futura Bold Oblique, evokes advertising vernacular while rejecting it simultaneously. The minimalism is aggressive. There are no images, no soft gradients—just text and color slamming into you with the gravity of protest. Kruger’s genius lies in the tension she creates between clarity and critique.

What makes this particular photo powerful is how it captures not only the artwork but the interaction between space, viewer, and message. The escalator’s slope, the color isolation in red, and the careful crop of the frame emphasize how Kruger manipulates spatial dynamics to trap and guide the viewer’s gaze. Typography becomes architecture.

Whether seen in-person or through the lens, this work crystallizes the visual ethos of Barbara Kruger—text as resistance, art as intervention. The piece asks you not just to look, but to think. To question your complicity. To wonder, truly: What are you buying, and what are you selling?

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s art pulses with kinetic energy, racial commentary, and an unfiltered emotional core, and this piece captures all of that in explosive color and form. The crowned figure at the center, rendered with skeletal intensity, stands like a defiant deity—part man, part myth, perhaps even martyr. Arms outstretched and teeth bared, the figure emanates an arresting presence, grounded yet transcendent, signaling Basquiat’s obsession with identity, power, and resistance.

To the left, a barking dog joins the chaos, drawn with wild eyes, bared teeth, and slashing limbs. This dog is no loyal companion; it’s a street animal, part witness and part warning. Basquiat often used dogs as avatars of danger, fear, and unheeded warning. This one howls not for attention, but to pierce silence. It’s an alarm—social, racial, existential.

The palette is urgent: electric reds, caustic oranges, deep blacks, sky blues. Basquiat painted quickly and intuitively, using color like sound in a punk solo. His backgrounds are never passive; they’re always on fire with motion. The yellow flare to the right and the turquoise swathe to the left wrestle for dominance, like a storm building and retreating at once.

Underneath the chaos lies precision. Basquiat wasn’t simply reacting—he was composing. The figure’s outline echoes anatomical diagrams, and the dog is stylized like cave painting fused with graffiti. There’s a haunting halo in red that hovers above the canine’s head, and scribbled forms around the figure hint at mechanical prosthetics or systems of control. It’s as if Basquiat is dissecting not just the body, but the state—mapping the forces that act upon us, break us, try to rewire us.

You can see his fingerprints in the drips, the overlays, the brushstrokes that go over the lines like a correction or a refusal to be corrected. It’s improvisation and resistance at once. And in the context of Banksy's later homage, the significance doubles. This isn’t just a painting—it’s a blueprint of rebellion.

Displayed against a matte gallery wall, the piece demands confrontation. Its rawness doesn’t fade under gallery lights; it intensifies. Even protected behind stanchions, the figure still confronts viewers head-on. It does not look away. And neither can you.

Basquiat, a Black artist operating in the predominantly white New York art world of the 1980s, used paintings like this to assert identity and agency in a space that often sought to tokenize him. Now, decades later, this image resonates across generations, inspiring artists like Banksy and challenging audiences to reckon with power, voice, and erasure.

Whether encountered for the first time or the hundredth, this painting stings with relevance. It’s graffiti elevated to gospel, the streets translated to canvas without compromise. It’s Basquiat in his full, brutal glory.

Duane Hanson (1925-1996) - Housepainter I (1984-1988). Polyester resin and fiberglass polychromed in oil, mixed media with accessories. In the Pinault Collection, shown at the temporary exhibition "Corps et Âmes [Bodies and Souls]" at Bourse de Commerce, Paris.

The curators explain: "Duane Hanson made his sculptures from moulds for which he often used various bodies. This use of an imprint, a technique that he got from American artist George Segal, breaks a particularly strong taboo in the history of sculpture."

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) - Pater (1982). In the Berardo Collection, Museu de Arte Contemporânea at Centro Cultural de Belém (MAC/CCB), Lisbon.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970) - Untitled (Figure and entrance door) (1937-1938). In the Berardo Collection, Museu de Arte Contemporânea at Centro Cultural de Belém (MAC/CCB), Lisbon.

Pegeen Vail (1925-1967) - The Dance (1945). In The 31 Women Collection. Shown at the temporary exhibition "31 Women: An exhibition by Peggy Guggenheim" at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea - Centro Cultural de Belém (MAC/CCB), Lisbon, Feb.-Sept. 2025.

"The 31 Women Collection" was created to celebrate an exhibition organised in 1943 by Peggy Guggenheim at her Art of This Century gallery in New York, titled precisely "Exhibition by 31 Women". As the curators explain, "one of Guggenheim’s objectives was to highlight the contribution of women artists, who had often been dismissed as muses, imitators, or companions of famous male artists by the patriarchal mindset of the time".

The artists were Djuna Barnes, Xenia Cage, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Meraud Guinness Guevara, Anne Harvey, Valentine Hugo, Buffie Johnson, Frida Kahlo, Jacqueline Lamba, Eyre de Lanux, Gypsy Rose Lee, Hazel McKinley, Aline Meyer Liebman, Louise Nevelson, Meret Oppenheim, Milena Pavlovic-Barilli, Barbara Poe-Levee Reis, Irene Rice Pereira, Kay Sage, Gretchen Schoeninger, Sonja Sekula, Esphyr Slobodkina, Hedda Sterne,

Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Dorothea Tanning, Julia Thecla, Pegeen Vail Guggenheim and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. The collection comprises works by those artists, including some pieces that were part of the 1943 exhibition.

This painting from 1945 was not part of Peggy Guggenheim's exhibition. There was possibly a bit of nepotism in the inclusion of Pegeen, then aged 18, in that exhibition: she was Peggy's daughter. Pegeen tended to paint cheerful pictures, although she suffered from depression. She died of medication overdose.

Mira Schor (b. 1950) - Torn (It didn't happen) (2024). In a private collection, shown at the temporary exhibition "Corps et Âmes [Bodies and Souls]" at Collection Pinault, Bourse de Commerce, Paris.

from Rusty Signs, 2014
Ed Ruscha
Mixografia print on handmade paper

These prints were made using a proprietary process developed at Mixografia. Ruscha drew each sign, using a favoured lettering style he refers to as 'Boy Scout Utility Modern', and superimposed them onto corroded metal before the printing plates were produced. The finished plates were carefully inked to suggest the weathering of the metal and passed through the press with wet handmade paper under great pressure.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

from Insects, 1972
Ed Ruscha
Screenprint in five colours

Printed in rose, tan, grey, red brown and white on glazed-finished watercolour paper.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

Cash for Tools 2
from Rusty Signs, 2014
Ed Ruscha
Mixografia print on handmade paper

In Rusty Signs, a series of six prints produced at the Mixografia print studio in Los Angeles, Ruscha combines his interests in graphic signage, roads, the American landscape and visual illusions. Made from handmade paper, the prints look like the rusty, bullet-hole-riddled signs that Ruscha would frequently see along American highways. The phrases 'Cash for Tools' and 'Dead End' suggest downturn and decline.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

from Rusty Signs, 2014
Ed Ruscha
Mixografia print on handmade paper

These prints were made using a proprietary process developed at Mixografia. Ruscha drew each sign, using a favoured lettering style he refers to as 'Boy Scout Utility Modern', and superimposed them onto corroded metal before the printing plates were produced. The finished plates were carefully inked to suggest the weathering of the metal and passed through the press with wet handmade paper under great pressure.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

Cash for Tools 2
from Rusty Signs, 2014
Ed Ruscha
Mixografia print on handmade paper

In Rusty Signs, a series of six prints produced at the Mixografia print studio in Los Angeles, Ruscha combines his interests in graphic signage, roads, the American landscape and visual illusions. Made from handmade paper, the prints look like the rusty, bullet-hole-riddled signs that Ruscha would frequently see along American highways. The phrases 'Cash for Tools' and 'Dead End' suggest downturn and decline.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

from Rusty Signs, 2014
Ed Ruscha
Mixografia print on handmade paper

In Rusty Signs, a series of six prints produced at the Mixografia print studio in Los Angeles, Ruscha combines his interests in graphic signage, roads, the American landscape and visual illusions. Made from handmade paper, the prints look like the rusty, bullet-hole-riddled signs that Ruscha would frequently see along American highways. The phrases 'Cash for Tools' and 'Dead End' suggest downturn and decline.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

from Rusty Signs, 2014
Ed Ruscha
Mixografia print on handmade paper

These prints were made using a proprietary process developed at Mixografia. Ruscha drew each sign, using a favoured lettering style he refers to as 'Boy Scout Utility Modern', and superimposed them onto corroded metal before the printing plates were produced. The finished plates were carefully inked to suggest the weathering of the metal and passed through the press with wet handmade paper under great pressure.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

from Insects, 1972
Ed Ruscha
Screenprint in five colours

Printed in rose, tan, grey, red brown and white on glazed-finished watercolour paper.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

from Insects, 1972
Ed Ruscha
Screenprint in five colours

Printed in rose, tan, grey, red brown and white on glazed-finished watercolour paper.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

from Insects, 1972
Ed Ruscha
Screenprint in five colours

Printed in rose, tan, light grey, red brown and white on glazed-finished watercolour paper


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum

Melrose, Market
Columbus, Sunset
Highland, Hyde
from Los Francisco San Angeles, 2001
Ed Ruscha
Portfolio of 7 colour soft-ground etchings

In this series of imaginary maps, the main streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles converge and intersect to form a synergized city. Rusca produced these etchings at Crown Point Press, a print studio in San Francisco with which he first collaborated in 1982. In contrast to the sharp-edged graphic style of his early work, he exploited the soft-ground technique to create gentler, less distinct lines. Fingerprints, smudges, stray marks and plate tone are retained.*

From the exhibition


Ed Ruscha: roads and insects
(September 2023 – January 2024)

This display of prints by American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) focused on his prevailing interest in the physical world around him.
At its centre was Insects, a portfolio of six colour screenprints depicting life-sized flies, ants and cockroaches, complete with shadows to give the illusion of three-dimensional critters resting, swarming or scuttling across flat surfaces.
Printed in 1972, the portfolio was displayed in full. It was acquired by the British Museum in 2023 as a gift from a private collector in memory of Paul Thomson to the American Friends of the British Museum. The display also included a portfolio of seven soft-ground etchings from 2001 titled Los Francisco San Angeles, in which Ruscha creates imaginary maps that intersect the principal roads of LA and San Francisco, and two prints from the artist's 2014 series of Rusty Signs, which appear to comment on the fading of the American Dream.
In 1956, aged just 18, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City in the South Central US to Los Angeles, the West Coast city with which he is most closely associated and where he has been based ever since. The near 1,400-mile journey along Route 66 would become very familiar to him over years of travelling back and forth and inspire his first artist's book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Self-published in 1963, this was a cheaply printed paperback containing black-and-white photographs of the filling stations that punctuated the highway like 'cultural belches in the landscape' (Ruscha). Ever since those early days in LA, where he trained in commercial graphic design, roads, cars, gas stations, signs and billboard advertisements have occurred frequently in Ruscha's art across a variety of media including painting, printmaking, photography, drawing and film.
[*British Museum]

Taken in British Museum