The work of iconic American artist Ed Ruscha is represented in depth in the UBS Art Collection with 56 paintings, works on paper and prints that span the first four decades of his career and include some of his most seminal images.
Ruscha's oeuvre is not easily confined to any one category. With his deadpan, West Coast attitude and wry sense of humor, Ruscha adds a more conceptual edge to Pop art. Since the late 1950s and early 1960s, words and phrases have played a central role in his practice. References to trademarks and packaging, exploration of fonts and typography, as well as the use of oblique perspectives and flat, commercial style are evidence of his early training as a layout artist in the advertising industry.
The tiny ‘Spam Study’ (1961-62) may be the smallest painting he ever produced. It is the study for a larger work, ‘Actual Size’ (1962), now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The study is meant to be the exact size of a can of Spam, a precooked canned meat that was introduced to American consumers in the 1930s and soon became a household name. Ruscha lived off Spam for months as a young artist.