BILLY AL BENGSTON (1934-2022) AND ED RUSCHA (B. 1937) Group of Two Works BILLY AL BENGSTON (1934-2022) California Painting Team (Belt) painted leather belt 39 x 2 1/4 in (99.1 x 5.7 cm) Executed in circa 1970 ED RUSCHA (B. 1937) Lampshade seaweed on lampshade lampshade: 13 1/2 x 17 1/2 x 17 1/2 in (34.3 x 44.5 x 44.5 cm) overall: 28 x 17 1/2 x 17 1/2 in (71.1 x 34.3 x 34.3 cm) Executed in circa 1970 Footnotes: Provenance BILLY AL BENGSTON (1934-2022) California Painting Team (Belt) Ed Ruscha, Los Angeles (gifted by the artist). Private collection, Los Angeles (acquired directly from the above). By bequest from the above. ED RUSCHA (B. 1937) Lampshade Private collection, Los Angeles (gifted by the artist). By bequest from the above. Literature ED RUSCHA (B. 1937) Lampshade R. Dean, Ed Ruscha: An Archive of Projects, New York and New Haven, 2023, fig. 10 (illustrated p. 18). At the start of the 1970s, British actress Samantha Eggar put down roots in Los Angeles to embark on a new chapter in her career, arriving at a moment when the film and television industries were undergoing profound transformation. Hollywood was shifting away from the dominance of the studio system in its Golden Age toward a more experimental director-driven model, a landscape that proved to be fertile for the young ambitious actress. On the heels of an Academy award nomination for her role in William Wyler's The Collector, she embraced a wide range of opportunities across both film and television. Refusing to be confined to a single genre, she began a prolific television career which offered her steady roles between film productions and ample opportunities to expand her craft with each new character. Trained on the stage in Shakespearean theater, she brought a disciplined and thoughtful approach to every role, displaying a remarkable versatility. The art scene of Los Angeles in the 1970s was also a new, not yet defined era following the closure of Walter Hopps' and Irving Blum's wildly influential Ferus Gallery in 1966. The scene entered a period of reinvention, marked by experimentation with new material and ideas. At a time of unprecedented interdisciplinary exchange in California, artists, actors, and musicians gathered in lively house parties in the Hollywood Hills or Bel Air, where social and creative boundaries dissolved. It was within this milieu that Eggar found not only a new place to call home, but a deeply engaged artistic community. She formed lasting friendships with leading figures of the Los Angeles art world and became an active participant in its ecosystem, attending openings across town and collecting the work of friends Billy Al Bengston, Ken Price, Robert Graham, Larry Bell, and more. Her Beverly Hills home also became a gathering place where she hosted dinner parties that brought together a vibrant cross section of the city's creative circles. It was in this context that Eggar met a young painter named Ed Ruscha, who had earned his place among the Ferus Gallery 'studs' with his large-scale canvases that transformed words into abstract shapes. With Ferus Gallery's closure in 1966, Ruscha had his first solo show in New York the following year at Alexander Iolas Gallery where he debuted his groundbreaking gunpowder drawings. Having grown dissatisfied with graphite, charcoal, and other conventional media, Ruscha turned to new materials he could experiment with and manipulate to concoct his own unique pigments. In addition to the luminous gunpowder and pigment work Streaks of Oil, other works by Ruscha associated with this period of Eggar's life include a metal contour gauge with which he captured her profile, a lampshade covered in seaweed, a painted leather belt bearing the phrase 'California Painting Team', and a limited set of Ruscha's Spooning lithograph with Eggar's own hand coloring using a Revlon lipstick, as well as a painting made for her birthday in 1974, emblazoned with the word 'ACTRESS' across a signature gradient. Additional works from the Estate of Samantha Eggar coming to auction at Bonhams vividly capture one of the most important defining moments in the cultural history of Los Angeles while also telling the story of a long life lived to the fullest and guided by creativity, passion, humor, generosity, and love. Saleroom notices: Please note that the attribution for this work has been updated. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing

Saleroom Notice:
Please note that the attribution for this work has been updated.