On View
Not on viewObject number2009.57
1984
Artist
Ed Ruscha
(American, 1937-)
Date1967
Mediumlithograph
Dimensionssheet: 20 × 25 in. (50.8 × 63.5 cm)
image: 14 × 17 7/8 in. (35.6 × 45.4 cm)
image: 14 × 17 7/8 in. (35.6 × 45.4 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Charlotte Collins from the Charles and Charlotte Collins Collection
Exhibition History"A Passion for Collecting: Prints of the 1960s and '70s from the Collins Collection," KIA Galleries 2&5 (Nov. 13, 2010 - Jan. 2, 2011).
"Drawn to Abstraction," Charles H. MacNider Museum of Art, Mason City, IA (June 24 - August 20, 2016).
"Drawn to Abstraction," Sardoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA (August 25 - November 1, 2020).
Label TextEd Ruscha’s early work in the commercial world of graphic design influences his use of color and text. The creation of the print 1984, like the book by George Orwell, significantly predates the arrival of the infamous calendar year. The digits assume the impersonal form of “checkbook” type that signified the computer-age in the 1960s. Ironically, a fly—in Ruscha’s signature trompe-l’oeil fashion—creeps into the otherwise undefined space.
