INTRODUCTION

Interviews

Mockups

Finished mockups for News, Pews, and Dues on the drying

rack

left: News, 1970, center: mockup of News on alkaline Arches silkscreen paper with bluer pie fill-ing and unsaturated salmon roe, right: mockup of News on more acidic newsprint with redder pie filling.

The author printing proofs for the News mockup using blackcurrant pie filling and salmon roe.

Conclusion

Debra Evans, Victoria Binder, Anisha Gupta, Don Larsen, Karin Breuer, Colleen Terry, Rich Rice, Danny Cesena, Mike Lai, Lars Nylander, Joseph Studholme, Caroline Edwards, and Katie Sanderson.

Special thanks to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Acknowledgments

In the 1970s, American artist Ed Ruscha experimented with food and other commercial substances, heightening the “wit and absurdity”1 already present in his work.

Documentary photographs by photographs by Tony Evans were instructive on the steps involved in printing. © Estate of Tony Evans/ Timelapse Library Ltd.Ltd.

Ruscha at work

Ruscha’s organic printsand drawings pose achallenge for conservatorsbecause we know so littleabout the unconventionalmedia. My interviews andmockupsmockups helped to answerthese questions to a degree, but mostly servedto document aspects ofthese artworks that maynot be available to future researchers.

StoriesStories told by Studholme, Edwards, and Aitchison supplied different perspectives on the prints and clarified many interesting and otherwise overlooked details. RuschaRuscha’s interviews not only delineated the original intent for theworks, but also confirmedhis wishes for their care.Both the printing processand resulting printsillustratedillustrated how the printsmay have lookedoriginally and why theyappear the way they donow. As an added bonus,the mockups are availablefor continued monitoringand further testing.and further testing.

A full study of the eeffects of light exposure on Ruscha’s organic prints was performed in collaboration with con-servation scientists at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. For results of Microfading and gallery light testing, please see general sessionsession poster titled, The dilemma of fading food: An investigation into the light sensitivity of select-ed Ed Ruscha screen-prints.

My study focuses on News, Mews, Pews, Brews, Stews & Dues (1970), a portfolio of six screenprints of stereotypically British words printed with a wide range of British products and published by Editions Alecto in London. Interviews and mockups provided essential information to better understand the materials and their longevity as well as Ruscha’s intent and working techniques.

I fabricated small-scale mockups of all six screenprints in the News… portfolio, choosing the word “Clues” in a similar Gothic script to rhyme with the Ruscha prints.

Referencing the list of original products that included manufacturers and suppliers, all materialsmaterials were purchased locally or imported from the UK. As some of the products were no longer in production or could not be found online, reasonable substitutes were found based on comparable ingredients and availability.

InIn most cases where the mockup inks were very similar to the original products, the mockup prints looked just like the original prints, down to the holidays (voids in the printing ink) in News caused by the roe skins.

AlectoAlecto screenprinter Kevin Harris remembered in 2000, “We had the problem that egg salmon roe for example…might change over a month from when it was first proofed. Some of the images with time have got darker, others lighter,

Silkscreen and squeegee covered with the “inks” used for printing the Stews mockups.

as the cellulose in the good cartridge paper...re-acts with the organic stains and changes the co-lour.”7 Harris’s statement corroborated with my observations of the News… portfolio mockups. Yellowing of the pie filling in the original print is likely due to aging.

1 Fox, Christopher. "Ed Ruscha Discusses His Latest Work with Christopher Fox." Leave Any Information at the Signal. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2002. 30. 2 Studholme, Joseph. Email communication. 10/10/2014. 3 Edwards, Caroline. Personal communication. 9/23/2015. 4 Aitchison, Bob. Email communication. 09/24/2014. 5 Edward Ruscha. Interview by Carol Mancusi-Ungaro. Artists Documentation Program. The Menil Collection, the Menil Collection, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Center for the Technical Study

of Modern Art, and the Harvard Art Museums, 21 October 2013. http://adp.menil.org/?page_id= 867. 7 April 2015. 6 Oral history interview with Edward Ruscha, 1980 October 29-1981 October 2, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. 7 Harris, Kevin. 2000. In Sidey, Tessa. 2003. Editions Alecto: Original graphics, multiple originals 1960-1981. Burlington, VT: Lund Humphries. 208.