Coyote

Ed Ruscha

"I don't have any Seine River like Monet. I just have U.S. 66 between Oklahoma and Los Angeles."

This statement by Ed Ruscha condenses the atmosphere of his work, all of which breathes the air of the American West. The Coyote serves as much as an idealised symbol for his America, the America of Jack Kerouac, J.Paul Getty and Clint Eastwood, as would Richard Prince’s cowboys or Jasper Johns’ Flag.

Ruscha’s early word paintings, Oof and Honk being famous examples, set the tone for his choice of and "predilection for monosyllabic, onomatopoeic words" which directly mimic the sounds they spell. Looking again at Coyote, we see that here, too, sound is implied by the animal’s posture. Rendered in the sprayed, black-and-white silhouette technique which the artist had explored from the mid-1980's, the image of Coyote is romantic and even somewhat cinematic in effect. An image which has been revisited in a number of works, the coyote recalls Ruscha’s Oklahoma roots, and may well be seen as something of a self-portrait.

Artist
Ed Ruscha (b.1937)
Title
Coyote
Medium
Lithograph
Date
1989
Sheet
36 x 27 in : 91.4 x 68.6 cm. on Rives BFK 100% rag paper with torn and deckled edges
Edition
From the edition of 50, signed, dated and numbered by the artist
Publisher
Ed Ruscha, Los Angeles
Printer
Ed Hamilton, Hollywood
Notes
Single run one colour (black) print from a single aluminium plate
Literature
Engberg 169
Reference
C14-33
Status
No Longer Available

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