Ed Ruscha: Ship Ahoy
Published by Crown Point Press, this two-color hard-ground etching by Ed Ruscha is one of a series produced in 2023 and depicts the two words that comprise its title. This short phrase is rendered in a style similar to that of the artist’s “swiped” word paintings, which likewise suggest that their verbal subjects are in rapid motion. As a group, the prints also begin to hint at a loose narrative involving movement or travel; in Ship Ahoy, the titular phrase, which is used to hail another ship or vessel, is rendered in dashed lines of black and blue, conveying a sense of arrival.
Ruscha has been building a lexicon of signs, symbols, images, and words drawn from vernacular American culture since his start as an artist in the 1960s. Over the course of a more than sixty-year career, and across a broad range of mediums, his visual utterances, sounds, and concepts have become embedded in the national ethos. Ruscha applies a wry verbal and visual wit to his chosen subjects, exploring the frequent disconnect between ideas and their expression to celebrate what he calls “everyday noise.”
Artist: Ed Ruscha
Date: 2023
Medium: 2-color etching
Dimensions: Unframed: 7 3/4 × 8 1/2 inches (19.7 × 21.6 cm); Framed: 9 1/8 × 9 7/8 inches (23.2 × 25.1 × 1 1/2 cm)
Edition: Edition of 40
Signed: Signed, numbered, and dated on recto
Printer: Emily York
Publisher: Crown Point Press, San Francisco
Framed: Sold framed
