Stains: Witch hazel (Borbro distilled)
1969
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View on museum website →Medium
witch hazel 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
2013.60.1.4
Art Historical Context
Ed Ruscha's *Stains: Witch hazel (Borbro distilled)* (1969) is a playful yet provocative exploration of everyday materials transformed into art. Part of the artist's *Stains* portfolio, this work features witch hazel—a common astringent distilled from the witch hazel plant and here branded "Borbro"—applied directly to wove paper. Measuring just 30 × 27.31 cm, the modest sheet captures the liquid's organic seep and dry, creating abstract, ephemeral marks that defy conventional painting techniques. Ruscha, a key figure in 1960s Conceptual and Pop Art, blurred the lines between language, object,...
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...