Quote

When I began painting, all my paintings were of words which were gutteral utterances like Smash, Boss, Eat. Those words were like flowers in a vase.

Edward Ruscha

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edward Ruscha
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: December 16
Artist
Designer
Draftsperson
Film Director
Filmmaker
Graphic Artist
Painter
Photographer
Printmaker
Sculptor
Omaha
Nebraska
Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruschā
Edward Joseph Ruscha
Edward Rusha
Edward Ruscha
Edward Joseph Ruscha IV
Like
Utterance
Paintings
Boss
Flowers
Began
Utterances
Flower
Vase
Painting
Vases
Words
Smash

More quotes by Edward Ruscha

Image
When I first did the book on gasoline stations, people would look at it and say, Are you kidding or what? Why are you doing this? In a sense, that's what I was after: I was after the head-scratching.
Edward Ruscha
Image
As an artist, I gotta stand up to my own work.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I barely knew I wanted to be an artist. I liked my art classes and painting was fun, I guess, but I didn't realize that seeing the country was going to inspire me to further explore that... but that's what it did.
Edward Ruscha
Image
All my artistic response comes from American things, and I guess I've always had a weakness for heroic imagery.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I don't watch TV, so I feel like I'm left out of the American fabric or something.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I was raised with the Bible Belt mentality, and by coming to California, I came out of this dark place and unlearned a lot of things I'd been taught.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I don't do social media of any kind. If I did, I may as well join Scientology.
Edward Ruscha
Image
When you're on a highway, viewing the western U.S. with the mountains and the flatness and the desert and all that, it's very much like my paintings.
Edward Ruscha
Image
The subject [of Los Angeles] became a general metaphor for anxiety and the speed of modern life.
Edward Ruscha
Image
Good art should elicit a response of 'Huh? Wow!' as opposed to ‘Wow! Huh?'
Edward Ruscha
Image
People refuse to believe that I've never been to Starbucks or Disneyland.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I think the most interesting stuff comes from people who've just got nothing to lose. You know, let's kamikaze this thing - just throw themselves in it, devil may care.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I just use [the camera]. I just pick it up like an axe when I've got to chop down a tree. I pick up a camera and go out and shoot the pictures I have to shoot.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I'd read about Los Angeles and this fact stuck in my mind: that the city gained 1,000 new people every day. In 1956! A thousand people every day! I felt: 'I want to be part of that.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I was attracted to the concept of Hollywood and the lifestyle here. But I've grown to mistrust it because it has changed. I didn't bargain for digital access parking in some concrete structure. Real heaven for me was to drive somewhere and park right in front. Now the city is going vertical.
Edward Ruscha
Image
Traveling is irritating to me, but not driving. Going to the airport makes me nervous, but when I set out to just take a leisurely drive, it's blue skies and puffy clouds and time.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I never expected to sell my art. It wasn't like today where you come out of art school and they promise you a future. Now it's almost regulated in a way. When we came out of school, we just wanted to make art that'd blow your hair back and do it for sport. There was no commercial possibility that we saw.
Edward Ruscha
Image
Nothing's changed except the dates on the newspapers. I'm in my same skin thinking the same old thoughts. The difference between psychedelia and digitalia ages will seem like a smooth blending in years to come and will be a mere blip on the screen.
Edward Ruscha
Image
I have no social agenda with my work. I'm deadpan about it.
Edward Ruscha
Image
Traveling to Europe and traveling in the U.S.A. was a much different experience. 'On the Road' exemplified everything glamorous that was happening on this side of the planet. The book puts off some kind of sweet melody - part hope for the world, part nostalgic.
Edward Ruscha