Ed Ruscha, Detail of notes from Notebook. © Ed Ruscha.

The J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute announced today the joint acquisition of over seventy photographs by artist Ed Ruscha as well as his Streets of Los Angeles archive, including thousands of negatives, hundreds of photographic contact sheets, and related documents and ephemera. A portion of the material will come to the Getty as a promised gift from the artist. 

One of the most influential American artists working today, Ruscha moved to Los Angeles in 1956 and has continued to live and work here, incorporating the citys architecture, streets, and even its attitude into paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs that are known for their graphic directness. 

This combined acquisition by the Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute now makes the Getty Center the preeminent resource for understanding the role of photography in Ruschas practice and will make this aspect of the artists work more widely accessible, locally and internationally. "I am humbled and elated to have my work go to the top of the hill," said Ruscha. 

Last days to see Ed Ruscha at the Hayward Gallery in London

You've got until 10th January to see the first major Ed Ruscha's UK retrospective. The show focus exclusively on the paintings of the American artist. Spanning Ed Ruscha’s entire career, the exhibition features 78 paintings, many on public display for the first time, and reveals the depth and breadth of Ruscha’s achievement as a painter whose interests in printed matter, graphic design, cinema, photography and the cultural landscape of the American West make his elegant and provocative work both playful and subversive.

More info on: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-visual-arts