On the Road Photography by Ed Ruscha
La Jolla, CA (January 9, 2013)—The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library is pleased to present
On the Road, photography by Ed Ruscha.
In 1951, Kerouac wrote On the Road on his typewriter as a continuous 120 foot-long scroll, recording in twenty days his experiences during road trips in the U.S. and Mexico in the late 1940s. With its publication in 1957, Kerouac was acknowledged as the leading voice of the Beat Generation, a group of writers that included Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs.
Ed Ruscha created his own limited edition artist’s book version of On the Road in 2009, published by Gagosian Gallery and Steidl and illustrated with photographs that he took, commissioned, or found. Ruscha has created an entirely new body of paintings, photographs, and drawings that take their inspiration from passages in Kerouac’s novel.
A selection of these images, along with the artist’s book — which is in the Athenaeum collection — will be on display in the Joseph Clayes III Gallery. The complete set of Ed Ruscha’s artist’s books, also part of the Athenaeum’s Artists’ Books Collection, will be displayed in the North Reading Room.