Edward Ruscha (b. 1937)
Lot 225

Edward Ruscha (b. 1937)

Pressurized Diabolics

Closed16 May 2013

Price Realised

USD 231,750

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Edward Ruscha (b. 1937)
Pressurized Diabolics
signed and dated 'Edward Ruscha 1976' (on the reverse)
pastel on paper
22½ x 28½ in. (57.1 x 72.3 cm.)
Executed in 1976.

Leo Castelli Gallery, New York
Karsten Schubert, London
Anon. sale; Cornette de Saint Cyr, Paris, 21 June 1989, lot 116
Private collection, France
Private collection, Madrid

Specialist note

Executed in 1976, this work will be included in a forthcoming volume of Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper.

"Ruscha evidences the accepted modern artist's traits of fragmentation and isolation, relativism and psychology, and innovation. Each painted, drawn, or photographed subject is plucked from its ecological, social, and moral surroundings to be fastened to the surface of the artwork, like a butterfly to a felt-covered specimen tray;...Ruscha's images are half awake, half in dream."

(P. Plagens, "Ed Ruscha, Seriously," The Works of Edward Ruscha, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1982, p. 35.)