Delve into the postwar Los Angeles art world in this online archive, which provides additional material related to the exhibitions on view at the Getty Center. Learn about hipsters and happenings, and the venues across the city where all the action took place through images from the archives and first-hand accounts with the artists.
Allen Ruppersberg (born 1944) was raised in suburban Cleveland and became interested in animation and commercial art after visiting Disneyland as a young boy. He graduated from the Chouinard Art Institute in 1967 and initially worked as a painter. He soon became fascinated with pulp fiction novels, magazines, posters, and films—the stuff of everyday life and culture—and made them the content and form of his work. Al’s Café (1969), an art project masquerading as a restaurant, was followed in 1971 by an installation in a craftsman-style house called Al’s Grand Hotel, which Ruppersberg ran as an actual hotel over the course of six weekends.
Explore the Era
Delve into the postwar Los Angeles art world in this online archive, which provides additional material related to the exhibitions on view at the Getty Center. Learn about hipsters and happenings, and the venues across the city where all the action took place through images from the archives and first-hand accounts with the artists.
Allen Ruppersberg
Artist
Greetings from L.A.: A Novel, 1972, Allen Ruppersberg. Offset lithograph. Self-published book. 8 x 5 1/4 x 11/16 in. The Getty Research Institute, 90-B12310.c1. © Allen Ruppersberg
Allen Ruppersberg (born 1944) was raised in suburban Cleveland and became interested in animation and commercial art after visiting Disneyland as a young boy. He graduated from the Chouinard Art Institute in 1967 and initially worked as a painter. He soon became fascinated with pulp fiction novels, magazines, posters, and films—the stuff of everyday life and culture—and made them the content and form of his work. Al’s Café (1969), an art project masquerading as a restaurant, was followed in 1971 by an installation in a craftsman-style house called Al’s Grand Hotel, which Ruppersberg ran as an actual hotel over the course of six weekends.
Historic Map Locations
Styles & Materials
Time Periods & Venues
Works of Art
Greetings from L.A.: A Novel, 1972, Allen Ruppersberg. Offset lithograph. Self-published book. 8 x 5 1/4 x 11/16 in. The Getty Research Institute, 90-B12310.c1. © Allen Ruppersberg
Al's Grand Hotel catalog, 1971, Allen Ruppersberg. Offset lithograph. 9 x 6 x 1/16 in. The Getty Research Institute, 94-B15837. © Allen Ruppersberg
24 Pieces, 1970, Allen Ruppersberg. Spiral-bound offset lithograph. Self-published book. 6 1/4 x 8 1/4 in. The Getty Research Institute, 89-B22093.c1. © Allen Ruppersberg
Explore the Archive
Video: Discover how L.A. artists of the 1960s and 1970s appropriated commercial culture
Letter and brochure for Al's Grand Hotel, May 2, 1971, designed by Allen Ruppersberg. Offset lithograph brochure, typed letter (signed). © Allen Ruppersberg. The Getty Research Institute, Gift of Michael Asher, 2009.M.30.2