Stains: Salad Dressing (Kraft Roka blue cheese)
1969
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
salad dressing 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
2013.60.1.43
Art Historical Context
Ed Ruscha's *Stains: Salad Dressing (Kraft Roka blue cheese)* (1969) is a playful yet profound example of Conceptual and Pop Art from the late 1960s. Created by applying actual Kraft Roka blue cheese salad dressing directly onto wove paper, this modest sheet (30 × 27.31 cm) transforms a mundane kitchen staple into an artistic medium. Ruscha, a key figure in American Pop Art known for his deadpan depictions of consumer culture, words, and everyday ephemera, here elevates the accidental—stains—to deliberate art, challenging traditional notions of beauty and craftsmanship. Part of the *Stains* p...
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...