Precise
Edward Ruscha American
Printed by Ed Hamilton American
Published by Edward Ruscha American
Not on view
Most often associated with West Coast Pop art, Ruscha began making paintings and prints of solitary words and pithy phrases-readable as signs, symbols, or images-as early as 1960, anticipating by nearly a decade the primacy of language in Conceptual art. In the mid-1980s, Ruscha often set words against evocative backgrounds, which he referred to as "suggestors." In this suite of lithographs, light streaming through an unseen window creates a grid-like shadow across the surface.
Artists working with a professional printer designate a satisfactory proof as B.A.T., or bon à tirer (a French term meaning "approved for printing"), before the printing of an edition can begin. The B.A.T. proof thus becomes the standard against which each subsequent print is compared, with the aim of creating a full set of impressions of the same high quality.
