Skip to main content
A print composed of a sheet with a splattering of colors creating the pointillist words, "MADE …
America Her Best Product
A print composed of a sheet with a splattering of colors creating the pointillist words, "MADE …
A print composed of a sheet with a splattering of colors creating the pointillist words, "MADE / I N / U. S. A."
America Her Best Product, Ed Ruscha, 1975, lithograph on paper, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, © Ed Ruscha.

America Her Best Product

Artist (American, born 1937)
Date1975
Mediumlithograph on paper
DimensionsImage: 31 3/8 × 23 1/2 inches (79.7 × 59.7 cm)
Sheet: 31 3/8 × 23 1/2 inches (79.7 × 59.7 cm)
Matted: 32 × 40 inches (81.3 × 101.6 cm)
Portfolio/SeriesKent Bicentennial portfolio, "Spirit of Independence"
Credit LineGift of Lorillard, a Division of Loew’s Theatres, Inc.
Object number1977.23
On View
Not on view
Copyright© Ed Ruscha. The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextA major player in the West Coast Pop Art movement of the 1960s, Ed Ruscha spent several of his early artistic years working in commercial art, for advertising agencies and magazines, before deciding to make his career in fine art. The written word and commercial processes would continue to strongly impact Ruscha’s work. He is best known for his “word paintings,” which are composed of words or brief phrases, often rendered to appear three-dimensional. 'America Her Best Product' is part of the Kent Bicentennial portfolio: Spirit of Independence, published in 1975 by Lorillard, A Division of Loews Theatres, Inc. and the same producers as Kent cigarettes, in order to “help illuminate the American experience as a contemporary expression of the meaning of our country’s independence.” Participating artists responded to the question: What does Independence mean to me? In Ruscha’s case, America built herself on her own, as a commercially successful product.
A gray gradated painting with the word "science" written across the center with the "s" and "n"…
Ed Joseph Ruscha
1991
A black and white city of towers with a diagonal band of text bisecting the town.
Rev. Howard Finster
1985
A self-portrait of the artist, Chuck Close, using a hand colored traditional Japanese woodcut t…
Chuck Close
2004
A man dressed in stereotypic Native American garments in the act of throwing a crate of tea ove…
Joseph Hirsch
1975
A print of block color figures on a blue background with the words above, "BIG DADDY PAPER DOLL…
May Stevens
1971
An abstract composition of red arrows creating a spiral over a blue, green, and yellow backgrou…
Howardena Pindell
2005 - 2007
A painting composition of music sheets painted with concentric, rhythmic shapes of varying colo…
Tim Rollins
2005 - 2006
Marks
Katharine Hartwig Dahl
1987 - 1995
A blue rectangle on the left with constellation-like dots is aligned with a blue square on the …
Sonya Clark
2017