Stains: India Ink (Pelikan)
1969
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
India ink on wove paper
Dimensions
sheet: 30 × 27.31 cm (11 13/16 × 10 3/4 in.)
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of the Collectors Committee
Accession Number
2013.60.1.65
Art Historical Context
Ed Ruscha's *Stains: India InkPelikan)* (1969) is a captivating example of conceptual art from the late 1960s, when artists like Ruscha blurred the lines between painting, photography, and everyday ephemera. Created with India ink—a dense, velvety black pigment traditionally used for fine drawing—on delicate wove paper, this sheet (30 × 27.31 cm) mimics the organic irregularity of a real stain. Ruscha, a key figure in West Coast Pop Art, often explored language, objects, and chance through deadpan humor and meticulous documentation, turning the mundane into the profound. Part of a larger port...
About the Artist
Ed Ruscha
Edward Ruscha, born Edward Joseph Ruscha IV on December 16, 1937, in Omaha, Nebraska, grew up in Oklahoma City after his family relocated there in 1941. From a young age, he was drawn to cartooning, supported by his mother, and his early artistic spark was nurtured amid the American Midwest before he moved to Los Angeles in 1956. There, he enrolled at the Chouinard Art Institute (now California In...