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Double Standard

A work made of color screenprint on ivory wove paper.

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  • A work made of color screenprint on ivory wove paper.

Date:

1969

Artist:

Ed Ruscha (American, born 1937)
collaboration with Mason Williams (American, born 1938)
printed by Jean Milant and Daniel Socha

About this artwork

Ed Ruscha is a California-based artist whose work is associated with the Pop art movement. Standard Station marks the first time that Ruscha collaborated with a print publisher, who financed the edition but left the execution up to the artist. Ruscha’s book of photographs Twenty-six Gasoline Stations—specifically the page depicting a Standard Oil station in Amarillo, Texas—provided the model for this print as well as a painting he made in 1963. Perhaps the most notable feature of the print version of the image is the gradation of the colors in the sky. Ruscha achieved this effect through the “Split-Fountain” technique, which blends ink to create a rainbow effect. The technique originated in commercial printing and had been used in lithographic and screenprinting shops for many years, but Ruscha was one of the first to use it in fine-art printing. As art historian Riva Castleman has pointed out, the garish rainbow effect achieved by Ruscha in this print was so often imitated by other artists that, by the late 1960s, it had become a printing cliché.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Ed Ruscha

Title

Double Standard

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1969

Medium

Color screenprint on ivory wove paper

Dimensions

Image: 49.4 × 93.5 cm (19 1/2 × 36 13/16 in.); Sheet: 65.1 × 101.4 cm (25 11/16 × 39 15/16 in.)

Credit Line

Harold Joachim Purchase Fund

Reference Number

1974.59d

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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