"Twenty-six Gasoline Stations" Turns 50

 Ed Ruscha, Twenty-six Gasoline Stations, Drawing of the artist's book, 1964

Rejection letter from the Library of Congress.

Ed Ruscha, Twenty-six Gasoline Stations, 1963

Ed Ruscha, Twenty-six Gasoline Stations, 1963 

Ed Ruscha, Twenty-six Gasoline Stations, 1963

Check out Carolina Miranda's interview "In Ed Ruscha's Work, A City Sits for Its Portrait" on NPR. Hear Ed Ruscha rev the engine of his 1933 Ford pick-up and how he has influenced architects as well as artists. From the website:

"The son of an insurance auditor, Ruscha was raised in Oklahoma City, but moved to L.A. in 1956. The gas stations he photographed all sat on Route 66, the highway he rode on his regular visits home. 'I just had a personal connection to that span of mileage between Oklahoma and California,' Ruscha explains. "It just, it kind of spoke to me.' So did the stark black-and-white cinematography of John Ford's 1940 film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath, which told the story of Oklahoma migrants fleeing the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. They traveled Route 66, too."