Oxydol

Following his graduation from art school in 1960, where he studied painting, Ed Ruscha worked as a commercial layout artist. He took up photography early, producing images of signage and commercial products that point toward the photobooks and signature compositions he made on paper and canvas throughout the 1960s and '70s. Oxydol is part of a group of images of common consumer goods that Ruscha claims to have randomly selected in his studio, without regard to aesthetic or emotional significance. Each object was photographed isolated and centered on a white background, a setup derived from advertising imagery. He later described his approach: "If you look at a product that is easily overlooked or not meant to have any real importance, you can focus on it to the point where you give it importance. That's what those product pictures were like."