The First Drive By Shooting

Four or five times a year, artist Ed Ruscha would drive from LA to his parent’s home in Oklahoma. In 1962, Ruscha photographed a series of gas stations on Route 66, including the Flying A Truck Stop at McConnico, Arizona. Utilizing very little text, Ruscha published a numbered edition of 400 books in April of 1963. The book, “Twentysix Gasoline Stations” sold for $3.50. An art critic said the book “combined the literalness of early California pop art with a flat-footed photographic aesthetic informed by minimalist notions of repetitive sequence and seriality.” Today, an original copy of the book sells for $35,000.