Here is how to look at Ed Ruscha's 'Dimple,' a word painting from 1964.
At first, it reads like a sign: crisp red letters on a white field, in the graphic language of advertising, where Ruscha briefly worked as a commercial artist.
Then you reach the final 'e.' A painted C-clamp squeezes it, and a word meaning a small indentation is dented by a piece of hardware. Here, Sotheby's specialist David Galperin shows how 'Dimple' is meant to be read and looked at, at the same time. It is one of only seven paintings in which Ruscha used the C-clamp.
Ed Ruscha's 'Dimple' will be on offer as part of Vision: The Extraordinary Collection of Theodore and Ruth Baum Evening Auction, live in New York on 16 November happening alongside The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, presented by CELINE.
