Twentysix Gasoline Stations

1963/1969. Third edition (1969; originally published in 1963 in an edition of 400 numbered copies). Soft cover. White matt wrappers with title printed in red on cover and spine, with glassine dust jacket. Photographs, artist's book concept and design by Ed Ruscha. Unpaginated (48 pp.), with 26 black and white illustrations printed by The Cunningham Press, Alhambra, California. 7-1/16 x 5-9/16 inches. Out of print. Very scarce. This third edition was limited to 3000 copies. [The first edition of this, the seminal artist's book of the pop- and conceptually-driven art of the 1960s, was published in 1963 in a signed and numbered edition of 400 copies; 2nd edition (1967) of 500 copies.] A coveted, landmark artist's book which included photographs of gasoline stations dotting old Route 66 between Los Angles and Oklahoma City (the artist's hometown). Each "snapshot" (as Ruscha referred to them at the time) is captioned only with its location and the oil company name and was originally made, according to Ruscha, solely to serve the book's conceptual approach. The publication was rejected by the Library of Congress for its unorthodox form and supposed lack of information. Twentysix Gasoline Stations is a monumental, albeit unassuming, contribution that helped shape the strong resurgence of interest in artist's books from the 1960s to the present.