Sponge Puddle

Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) is an American artist whose decades-long career melds Pop Art iconography and Conceptual Art. He is best known for his ‘word paintings’ of single words or short phrases that float in the middle of the composition. The exploration of text, semantics and image reflects Ruscha’s early training in commercial graphic design and his engagement with the American vernacular. “Sponge Puddle” is from Ruscha’s Mountain Print series that superimposes clean text upon landscapes, a motif he began in the 1980s. For Ruscha, the snow-capped mountains are both a gesture to his hometown of Los Angeles and the great American West. This print was published by Hamilton Press, a workshop founded by Ed Ruscha and master printer Ed Hamilton in 1990. The artist’s works are held in the collections worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He continues to live and work in Los Angeles.