Hey

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Rendering the ubiquitous Californian greeting "Hey" was an early preoccupation for Ruscha, and explorations of this word punctuate the artist's output throughout the 1960s. Notable amongst these are Hey with Curled Edge (1964), an ink and graphite work in the collection of MoMA, New York, and the substantial oil painting Hey (1968-1969) in the collection of SFMoMA, to which our current work is related. Hey comes from a period of wild experimentation during which Ruscha considers almost every conceivable way the written word can be depicted. The letters are drawn as if by a finger on a steamed-up mirror, the tracks holding bright droplets of condensation that abstract the letters' forms. The everyday intimacy of the word, with its instant evocations of a thousand different situations, is almost an attempt to draw familiarity itself. It is not possible to read Hey in the exclamatory voice without the presence of an exclamation mark: it is certainly a work of tenderness. Neither does one comparatively consider the onomatopoeiaic performances so forcefully represented in Ruscha's earlier upper-case stars OOF, HONK and SMASH, which had different concerns. Instead, in Hey, one finds a friendly acknowledgement or even a welcome.

Hey

Ed Ruscha

Artist: Ed Ruscha (b.1937)
Title: Hey
Medium: Lithograph on calendered Rives BFK paper
Date: 1969
Size: 11 ½ x 13 ½ in : 29.2 x 34.3 cm .
Frame Size: 15 x 16 ¾ in : 38.0 x 42.5 cm
Edition: From the edition of 20
Inscriptions: Signed, dated and numbered by the artist
Publisher: Tamarind Lithography Workshop
Printer: Robert Rogers for Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles
Notes: 2 colours printed in 2 runs from 1 stone and 1 aluminium plate: 1. Green-grey - stone; 2. White - plate. This impression in pristine condition.
Literature: Engberg 28
Reference: A20-43