1972

Inscribed lower center Chewing Tobacco

Chewing tobacco on hand made paper

16.25 x 21.5 inches (41.3 x 54.6 cm)

Ex-collection:
Acquired directly from the artist
Sale: Sotheby’s New York Contemporary Art, September 12, 2007 [Lot 38)
Mark Borghi Fine Art acquired at the above sale
Private collection 2008 until the present

Literature
Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper, Volume 1: 1956–1976
Lisa Turvey, Harry Cooper 

Exhibitions:
The Joe Wilfer Show: Collaborations in Paper and Printmaking February – March, 1998  Plattsburg State Art Museum, Plattsburg , NY 

Note:
The paintings and drawings done by Ruscha beginning in the late 60’s early 70’s, using organic materials come at a critical time at the evolution of his work, At the age of 30, Ruscha was already considered one of the brightest stars of American art: at the frontier of conceptual art his Pop and his “Liquid paintings” exploded on the scene. His photographs are already hung at MoMA for the “Information” exhibition, and the New York Cultural Center as part of “Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects.” In these years, his pictorial output is reduced; for example in 1970 he quit painting, “I can no longer putting paint on a canvas. I cannot find any message there.” He explains to the critic David Bourdon.  However, while working on a new series of prints he begins to experiment with a wide range of new materials that he uses as pigments. For “Stains” a portfolio of seventy-five sheets that are published in 1969, Ruscha covers paper with various liquids and materials spots. Then, while in London to produce a portfolio of prints called “News, Mews, Pews, Brews, Stews, and Dues” he continues along this path using such diverse mediums as food, flowers and automobile grease, instead of traditional silkscreen ink. In1971, he produces only five canvases including a painting begun earlier and four others that again use food or other organic substances instead of paint. In just three years, Ruscha has used for his drawings and paintings a multitude of organic pigments: gunpowder, blood, red wine, fruit and vegetable juice concentrate, ketchup, cherry pie, coffee, caviar, tulips, fresh eggs, crushed grass etc…. But it is in the range of gray, yellow and brown it finds the most intense colored vibrations, including using various kinds of mustards, and like this drawing or the canvas 1972 “Done”, chewing tobacco powder. This important series is probably its origin in the draft prepared by Ed Ruscha for his participation in the 35th Biennale Venice: the “Chocolate Room”, for which he covers thirty seven sheets of paper with the Nestlé chocolate. Recreated in 1995 for the MoCA Los Angeles, and in 1999 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis

Ed Ruscha Done 1972
Tobacco on canvas , Private Collection