Artist Ed Ruscha designed this first-edition exhibition catalogue for his friend and fellow artist Billy Al Bengston’s 1968 retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (16 November 1968 - 12 January 1969); the show traveled to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Vancouver Art Gallery. The museum installation was designed by Frank Gehry.

Though this is an art catalogue of Billy Al Bengston’s works, it has become recognized as another one of Ed Ruscha's iconic pieces of artwork with his signature graphic and typographic aesthetic. The sandpaper cover features flocked lettering (which Ruscha would revisit in his 1970 artist’s book Babycakes) and is bound with machine screws and hex nuts. The page marker is a pink satin ribbon. The catalogue includes reproductions of the forty-six exhibited works, as well as an essay by James Monte.

This work is from the first edition of 2500 printed by Toyo Press, Los Angeles, and published by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It is in excellent condition. Softcover. 64 pages.

Size — 11” × 9”