Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha (pronounced roo-SHAY) emerged in the 1960s as one of the most distinctive voices in American Pop art, though he always resisted easy categorization. Born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1937, he moved to Los Angeles in 1956 to attend Chouinard Art Institute, and the city became his lifelong muse. Unlike the New York Pop artists who celebrated consumer culture, Ruscha found poetry in the mundane landscape of Southern California—gas stations, parking lots, and the Hollywood si…