Twentysix Gasoline Stations by Edward Ruscha (10 results)
More imagesPublished by n.p., n.p., 1969
- Softcover
Seller: Type Punch Matrix, Silver Spring, MD, U.S.A.Type Punch Matrix
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Near fine
US$ 1,700.00
US$ 49.99 shippingShips from U.S.A. to Hong KongQuantity: 1 available
Add to basketCondition: Near fine. Third edition of the first of Ruscha's sixteen books and an iconic early artist's book. Inspired by the look and feel of the books he encountered at the bouquiniste stands on the Left Bank during a 1961 trip to Paris, as well as his own work as a typesetter and printers devil, Ruscha self-published TWENTYSI…X GAS STATIONS with an aesthetic reminiscent of iconic Editions Gallimard paperbacks. Conceiving first of the title, Ruscha took photographs to fill the requisite number on a road trip from Los Angeles to visit his mother in his hometown of Oklahoma City. The photographs, labeled with the station name and location, together form a dotted line between LA and Oklahoma, creating out of these stoically framed images of banal locations an "uncompromising, nonliterary book" (Engberg & Phillpot) with a deep emotional resonance. A handsome copy of this iconic book. 7'' x 5.5''. Original printed wrappers. In original glassine jacket. [48] pages. Edition of 3000 unnumbered copies. Some minor toning, sunning to extremities. Else sharp and clean.
Published by The Cunningham Press, 1969
- Softcover
Seller: Book Alley, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A.Book Alley
Contact seller4-star sellerCondition: Used - Very good
US$ 1,500.00
US$ 40.00 shippingShips from U.S.A. to Hong KongQuantity: 1 available
Add to basketPaperback. Condition: Very Good. Third Printing, limited to 3000 copies. Near Fine in original glassine wrapper (two inch tear to front panel). Red-stamped white wraps; miniscule tear to back cover at the spine; otherwise a lovely copy.
Published by Cunningham Press, Alhambra, 1969
- Softcover
Seller: WAVERLEY BOOKS ABAA, Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.WAVERLEY BOOKS ABAA
Contact seller4-star sellerCondition: Used - Fine
US$ 2,500.00
US$ 75.00 shippingShips from U.S.A. to Hong KongQuantity: 1 available
Add to basketSoftcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. Third printing; 3rd. printing. Third printing. Pristine 'as new' copy' in printed wrappers in original unprinted glassine protective jacket. (48pp. ) 3000 copies printed. Out-of-print. Ed Ruscha's FIRST of 16 artist's books. ; 5 1/2" x 7"; 48 pages.
Published by The Cunnigham Press, 2nd edition, 1967
- Softcover
Seller: ANARTIST, New York, NY, U.S.A.ANARTIST
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used
US$ 3,000.00
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Add to basketSoftcover artist book with glassine dustwrapper; 48 pages; very good condition; binding is tight; glassine lightly ruffled at top edge; overall clean and crisp; no internal marks. An edition of 500.
Published by Cunningham Press, ALHAMBRA, 1963
- Softcover
- First Edition
Seller: WAVERLEY BOOKS ABAA, Santa Monica, CA, U.S.A.WAVERLEY BOOKS ABAA
Contact seller4-star sellerCondition: Used - Fine
US$ 12,500.00
US$ 75.00 shippingShips from U.S.A. to Hong KongQuantity: 1 available
Add to basketSoftcover. Condition: Fine. Near Fine. First Edition; First Printing. First edition. Copy 303 of 400 copies. Near fine in white printed wrappers with orange titles in original transulucent vellum wrapper. Original asking price of $2.50 penciled on front flap. (Spine lightly toned on vellum overlay. Small bump at bottom edge runn…ing through text. ) (48pp. ) (5 1/2" X 7") Ruscha's FIRST artist book. ; 5 1/2" x 7"; 48 pages.
Published by National Excelsior [E. Ruscha] Los Angeles, CA 1963, 1967, 1969, 1963
- Softcover
Seller: Specific Object / David Platzker, New York, NY, U.S.A.Specific Object / David Platzker
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used
US$ 2,000.00
US$ 26.00 shippingShips from U.S.A. to Hong KongQuantity: 1 available
Add to basket[48] pp.; 18 x 14 cm; sewn bound; black-and-white; edition size 3000; unsigned and unnumbered; offset-printed Edward Ruscha's first artist's book - and by far his best known title. Features black-and-white photographs of gasoline stations in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas captioned in all caps text with the… name of the gas station pictured and it's location. References : "Various Small Books : Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha" by Jeff Brouws, Wendy Burton, Hermann Zschiegner, Phil Taylor, Mark Rawlinson. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2013, pp. 8, 9. "International General, Distributing Independently Produced Vanguard Art Books, Catalogues and Information" by Seth Siegelaub. New York, NY : International General, 1971. No. 1 in "Books by Edward Ruscha" by Edward Ruscha. Munich, Germany : Galerie Heiner Friedrich, 1970. "Esthétique du Livre d'Artiste 1960 / 1980" by Anne Moeglin-Delcroix. Paris, France : Jean-Michel Place / Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 1997, pp. 18, 26. "The Works of Edward Ruscha" by Edward Ruscha, Anne Livet, Henry T. Hopkins, Peter Plagens, Dave Hickey. New York / San Francisco, NY / CA : Hudson Hills Press / San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1982, pp. 123. "Artist / Author : Contemporary Artists' Books" by Cornelia Lauf, Clive Phillpot, Glenn O'Brien, Jane Rolo, Brian Wallis, Martha Wilson, Thomas Padon. New York, NY : Distributed Art Publishers / The American Federation of Arts, 1998, pp. 33. Very Good. 5 mm. area of light staining to recto and 1 cm. and 3 mm. areas of light soiling to verso. 4 cm. area of faint markings from erased pencil notations on title page. Light rubbing of page edges and light sloping of pages. Otherwise Fine clean and unmarked.
More imagesPublished by Edward Ruscha, Los Angeles, 1967
- Softcover
- First Edition
Seller: Heritage Book Shop, ABAA, Beverly Hills, CA, U.S.A.Heritage Book Shop, ABAA
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used
US$ 3,250.00
US$ 50.00 shippingShips from U.S.A. to Hong KongQuantity: 1 available
Add to basketdj. First Edition. Los Angeles]: Edward Ruscha, 1962 [ie 1967]. Second edition, one of 500 unnumbered copies. Self published and printed by The Cunningham Press, Alhambra, California. The first edition was an edition of 400 numbered copies printed in 1963. Small quarto (7 x 5 1/2 inches; 179 x 140 mm). 48 pp. With numerous black…-and-white photographs. Publisher's full printed wrappers lettered in red. In the original glassine dust jacket. Wittenborn and Company sticker on rear inner wrapper. Overall a fine copy. With numerous photosgrapsh by Ruscha of gasoline stations throughout the American southwest, including California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. "Twentysix Gasoline Stations, a modest publication consisting of black and white photographs with captions, is an iconic artist book. The photographs are of petrol stations, along the highway between Ruscha?s home in Los Angeles and his parent?s house in Oklahoma City. Clive Phillpot, writer, curator and former Director of the Library at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, observes that the photographs are not reproduced in a linear sequence, with five photographs out of order. Taken from the highway and often including large areas of forecourt or road, the shots appear to be simply factual records of the petrol stations. Each opening of the book reveals one or two photographs in varying but repeated layouts, with the photographs set in relatively large areas of white space. The captions consist of the name of the petrol station and its location (for example, ?Texaco, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles? and ?Flying A, Kingman, Arizona?). The front cover has the title printed in red as three separate lines, the stark brightness of the design muted by the wrap around protective cover. The book is the first in a sequence of photographic artist books by Ruscha. Twentysix Gasoline Stations was first published in 1963 (although the title page states 1962) in an edition of 400 numbered copies. It was subsequently republished in two unnumbered editions. Ruscha?s books, and this one in particular, are considered seminal in the history of artist books." (Tate Gallery). HBS 68916. $3,250. RUSCHA, Edward (illustrator).
More imagesPublished by A National Excelsior Publication 1962 [1963], [Los Angeles], 1962
- Softcover
- First Edition
- Signed
Seller: ReadInk, ABAA/IOBA, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.ReadInk, ABAA/IOBA
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Poor
US$ 3,500.00
US$ 35.00 shippingShips from U.S.A. to Hong KongQuantity: 1 available
Add to basketSoftcover. Condition: Poor. First Edition. [externally in pretty bad shape (see images and notes), with part of the front cover torn (or eaten) away, and general overall soiling and discoloration; the binding, however, is intact, and the internals are perfectly OK]. (B&W photographs) Here, my friends, we have that most lamentabl…e and problematic of objects: a unique and highly collectable item that we must honestly acknowledge is in distinctly uncollectable condition -- the very sort of thing that the overworked verbal shrug "it is what it is" was coined to describe. And yet -- and yet -- there's no denying that it IS a thing, and quite a thing at that: an INSCRIBED copy of the FIRST printing of renowned artist Ed Ruscha's iconic first book, published under his own imprint in a numbered edition of just 400 copies (this being No. 87). The work itself is not "rare" -- there was a second edition (500 copies, 1967) and a third (a whopping 3,000 copies, 1969) -- and if your only ambition is to own a "nice" copy of this famous and influential work, well, heck, you might not even have to spend yourself into the four figures, and you'll still be one-up on the Library of Congress, which famously and politely rejected and returned the copy that Ed himself sent them in 1963, and to this day does not own a copy of any edition. (A not-too-subtle lack of respect for the 1960s L.A. art scene at play, maybe?) Anyway, those later printings are also "what they are" -- but THIS copy, for all its manifest depredations, is in a very rarefied class, having been INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the artist/author/photographer (in the year of publication, no less), as follows: "For / Sonny / From / Ed / 1963." The inscription has been authenticated by Mr. Ruscha himself, in an email exchange with our consignor in the Fall of 2022; a printed copy of these emails will be provided along with the book. Unfortunately, though, he couldn't recall, almost 60 years after the fact, who this "Sonny" was. It's fun to speculate that the inscribee might have been one of the notable Sonnys of American History -- Bono, Barger, Tufts, Jurgensen, and Liston come readily to mind -- but lacking any hard evidence, that's just a whole lotta wishful thinking. (And anyway, "Sonny" is about as common and all-American a nickname as you can find: even my little Nebraska hometown, population 900-something, had three or four Sonnys.) I have my own theory (although that's all it is), based on a comment of Ruscha's in a 1965 interview: "I showed the first book to a gasoline station attendant. He was amused." So I think that "Sonny" might well have been just such a pump jockey -- maybe even that very one -- possibly at one of the artist's regular fill-'er-up stops at the L.A. end of the California-to-Oklahoma journey that his book photographically traces. He might have been one of the Sons at the "Brown & Sons" APCO station in Oklahoma City, or maybe the guy who checked Ed's oil at the station that he depicted in his famous 1963 painting "Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas" (subsequently rendered as a widely-distributed print). Or -- to really play out the art-world fantasy -- maybe Sonny was the day-shift man at the famous "Double Standard" station, at the five-way intersection on the western edge of West Hollywood, that Dennis Hopper so memorably photographed (also circa 1963) -- which would make Ed's painting and Dennis's photo visual second cousins (or something like that). This is all wildly conjectural, of course -- but look at the poor little thing! Can we easily dismiss the idea that this shamefully mishandled copy of "Twentysix Gasoline Stations" might well have been stored IN a gas station for a few decades, possibly fallen behind an oil drum or lost beneath a pile of greasy rags? Maybe our man Sonny got fed up with the gas-pumping racket, stuffed his handful of belongings into a beat-up cardboard suitcase, lit out for Hawaii (where this copy was discovered by our consignor), and lived happily ever after as a surf-riding beach bum. It's unlikely that we'll ever know for sure, but you have to admit that none of these riffs are outside the realm of possibility. (It might as well be noted, too, that not a hell of a lot of copies of the first edition appear to have been signed at all; of the handful that have sold at auction in the last few decades -- at prices higher than we're asking here -- none have borne any authorial scribbling.) Better still, if you take possession of this unique copy, you will also assume custody of The Mystery of Sonny. If you can uncover the backstory, bully for you; but if not, you can just take my approach and make up your own. So to come full circle: "it is what it is" -- which is, in any event, a miracle of survival.
More imagesPublished by Alhambra, California National Excelsior Press April 1963, 1963
Seller: Voewood Rare Books. ABA. ILAB. PBFA, Holt, United KingdomVoewood Rare Books. ABA. ILAB. PBFA
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used
US$ 9,255.75
US$ 26.63 shippingShips from United Kingdom to Hong KongQuantity: 1 available
Add to basketFirst edition, number 209 of 400. Unpaginated, pp [48]. Original printed wrappers and with the original (and rare) glassine wrapper. Some slight spotting to edges of covers and a short blue biro mark to glassine on lower cover and a small spot on upper cover but overall in very good condition and Toning to edges and spine, creas…e to lower cover, head and foot of spine very slight chipped but overall in very good condition. Internally near fine. Twentysix Gasoline Stations is Ruscha's first book and widely regarded as the first modern artist's books. It consists simply of black and white photographs and brief captions stating the name of the petrol company and location of the station. The book's origins lie in Ruscha's long drives from California to his parents' home in Oklahoma. It sounds dull and it is meant to be, combining as Johanna Drucker says, "the literalness of early California pop art with a flat-footed photographic aesthetic informed by minimalist notions of repetitive sequence and seriality". Ruscha himself explained how he wanted "absolutely neutral material. My pictures are not that interesting.my book is more like a collection of readymades". He wanted, he said, "to be the Henry Ford of book making". This car imagery, combined with the gasoline stations have led some to see the book as a photographic version of a road movie - and Ruscha certainly draws on the gas station's central place in American popular culture. But Ruscha, brought up a Catholic, has lent his support to a more serious reading which sees his journey home through these stations as a form of religious journey, a modern, secular Stations of the Cross: "there is a connection between my work and my experience with religious icons". This sense of a pilgrimage with a defined endpoint is reinforced by Ruscha's decision to use as his last image a gasoline station owned by Fina.
- Softcover
- First Edition
Seller: Mullen Books, ABAA, Marietta, PA, U.S.A.Mullen Books, ABAA
Contact seller4-star sellerCondition: Used - Fine
US$ 6,900.00
US$ 80.00 shippingShips from U.S.A. to Hong KongQuantity: 1 available
Add to basketSoftcover. Condition: Fine. First Edition. Glossy printed plain white wraps with original glassine jacket. 5.55" x 7.05" An extraordinary copy of the first of Ruscha's iconic publications, in pristine condition. The glassine jacket is all original and virtually unscathed, with the exception being a Lilliputian hole along the spi…ne edge between the top and middle lines of text. The jacket exhibits some minor age-toning and offsetting from where this book set within a pile of two other Ruscha books for some period of time as if in a display. From what can be pieced together, this book was part of a group which was likely sent to a New York Art Book store as part of a marketing campaign to sell the books, which originally did not sell well for Ruscha. This is a first edition. TWENTYSIX GASOLINE STATIONS is dated 1962 on the title-page, and is an unnumbered copy of 400 copies printed in April 1963 by The Cunningham Press. An extraordinary copy.
