Actual Size

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© Ed Ruscha
My gallery Comment Tag Order Photography*
© Ed Ruscha
My gallery Comment Tag Order Photography*
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Actual Size

United States, 1962
Paintings
Oil on canvas
67 1/16 × 72 1/16 in. (170.34 × 183.04 cm)
Anonymous gift through the Contemporary Art Council (M.63.14)
Modern Art
Not currently on public view

Label

Words and phrases are central to Ed Ruscha’s work....
Words and phrases are central to Ed Ruscha’s work. While early twentieth-century artists have used text as collage or to challenge the relationship of language and images, Ruscha plays with puns, alliteration, and words that suggest sounds, all painted with careful attention to color, size, and font. In Actual Size, he includes a to-scale image of a flying can of Spam, elevating this budget-friendly lunchmeat to iconic status, similar to Warhol’s depiction of popular soup, cereal, and cleaning products. This painting was included in the 1962 exhibition New Painting of Common Objects at the Pasadena Art Museum, regarded as the first museum exhibition of Pop art in the United States.

Wall label, 2021.
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Bibliography

  • Rowell, Margit. Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips®, Smoke and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Ruscha. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2004.
  • Sunshine & Noir:  Art in L.A., 1960-1997. Humlebaek: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 1997.
  • Rowell, Margit. Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips®, Smoke and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Ruscha. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2004.
  • Sunshine & Noir:  Art in L.A., 1960-1997. Humlebaek: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 1997.
  • Critical perspectives in American art = Prospettive critiche nell'arte americana: United States Pavilion ... 37th Venice Biennial, 1976. N.p.: n.d., 1976.
  • Very: Ed Ruscha: Works from the UBS Art Collection. Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2018.
  • Environment, Participation, Cultural Structures: General Catalogue. Vol. 1. Venezia: Alfieri Edizioni d'Arte, 1976.
  • Eliel, Carol, editor. Light, Space, Surface: Art from Southern California. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books, 2021.
  • Ed Ruscha: Ribbon Words. New York: Edward Tyler Hahem, 2016.
  • Tuchman, Maurice.  Ten Years of Contemporary Art Council Acquisitions: Inaugurating The New Contemporary Art Galleries.  Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1973.
  • Donahue, Kenneth. Los Angeles County Museum of Art Handbook. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1977.

  • Tuchman, Maurice. Art in Los Angeles: Seventeen Artists in the Sixties. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1981.

    View this publication in LACMA's Reading Room

  • Hickey, Dave; Hopkins, Henry T.; Livet, Anne and Peter Plagens.  I Dont Want No Retro Spective:  The Works of Edward Ruscha.  New York:  Hudson Hills Press, 1982.
  • A Focus on California:  Selections from the Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984.
  • Powell III, Earl A., Robert Winter, and Stephanie Barron. The Robert O. Anderson Building. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986.
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art Members' Calendar 1992,  vol. 29-30, no. 12-1 (December, 1991-January, 1993).
  • Haskell, Barbara and Phillips, Lisa.  The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000.  The Whitney Museum of American Art and W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.
  • Various.  "Une société de consommation."  Connaissance des Arts 36 (March 2001).
  • Francis, Mark, ed.  Les Années Pop.  Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou, 2001.
  • Hickey, Dave; Marshall, Richard D.; and Rimanelli, David.  Edward Ruscha: Made in Los Angeles.  Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2002.
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003.
  • Barron, Stephanie, Michel Draguet, and Sara Cochran. Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Belgium: Ludion, 2006.

  • Teagle, Rachel. Wayne Thiebaud, 1958-1968. Davis: Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018.

  • Ed Ruscha : OKLA. Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, 2021.
  • Seldis, Henry J. "West Coast Milestone." Art in America 53, no.2 (1965): 92-109.
  • Allan, Ken D. "Ed Ruscha, Pop Art and Spectatorship in 1960s Los Angeles." Art Bulletin 40, no.4 (2010): 231-249.
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