The Flickr Cockroaches Image Generatr

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

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

Flies
from Insects, 1972
Ed Ruscha
Screenprint in five colours on paper-backed wood veneer

Meticulously printed in light grey, light blue, green, black and iridescent blue, the life-size flies cast their shadow on the wood veneer surface. Trompe l'oeil is a technique that Ruscha has used repeatedly in his prints to create the illusion of real, three-dimensional objects. In other works, juicy-looking stuffed olives seem to float in front of unrelated images, and words appear to have been formed from folded paper or spilt liquids.*

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

La Brea, Powell
Sunset, Pierce
Wilshire, Grant
Geary, Wilshire
from Los Francisco San Angeles, 2001
Ed Ruscha
Portfolio of 7 colour soft-ground etchings

Words form a key component of much of Ruscha's art. In this series, street names such as 'Melrose', 'Sunset' and 'La Brea' evoke urban California and give meaning to the grids, tracks and complex intersections that might otherwise be read as minimalist compositions. Sharp angles and diagonal lines are a recurring feature of Ruscha's work, in which buildings, billboards and letters often recede dramatically, as if shot for the movies.*

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

La Brea, Powell
Sunset, Pierce
Wilshire, Grant
Geary, Wilshire
from Los Francisco San Angeles, 2001
Ed Ruscha
Portfolio of 7 colour soft-ground etchings

Words form a key component of much of Ruscha's art. In this series, street names such as 'Melrose', 'Sunset' and 'La Brea' evoke urban California and give meaning to the grids, tracks and complex intersections that might otherwise be read as minimalist compositions. Sharp angles and diagonal lines are a recurring feature of Ruscha's work, in which buildings, billboards and letters often recede dramatically, as if shot for the movies.*

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

Flies
from Insects, 1972
Ed Ruscha
Screenprint in five colours on paper-backed wood veneer

Meticulously printed in light grey, light blue, green, black and iridescent blue, the life-size flies cast their shadow on the wood veneer surface. Trompe l'oeil is a technique that Ruscha has used repeatedly in his prints to create the illusion of real, three-dimensional objects. In other works, juicy-looking stuffed olives seem to float in front of unrelated images, and words appear to have been formed from folded paper or spilt liquids.*

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

Val Verde County, TX, US.
Tenuirostritermes cinereus is a species of termite in the higher-termite family Termitidae. This nomadic species is distributed throughout much of the Chihuahuan Desert and can usually be found forming long trails at night. I have personally observed workers, always accompanied by soldiers on guard, swarming over dried Quercus and Neltuma leaves. The soldiers of Nasutitermitine termites are unique in that they are typically smaller than workers and possess an elongated nozzle-like rostrum which is used to spray defensive secretions at would-be predators.