Colored People was self-published by Ruscha through the National Excelsior Press in 1972, in an edition of 4,000 copies. The title is deliberately provocative: in 1972, “colored people” was a loaded term, carrying the full weight of American racial history. But the book contains no people at all. Instead, it presents photographs of desert plants — cacti, succulents, and other arid-landscape flora — each tinted in a single artificial color: red, blue, green, purple, yellow.
The joke operates on multiple levels. The “people” are plants; the “colored” is literal (hand-tinted photographs); and the title invites the reader to confront their own expectations and assumptions about race, representation, and the relationship between words and images. Ruscha has consistently deflected questions about the racial implications of the title, insisting that the book is “just about plants” — a statement that is technically true and deliberately evasive.
The botanical images themselves are beautiful. The tinting process gives each plant an otherworldly quality — a blue cactus, a red agave, a purple yucca — that transforms familiar desert flora into alien specimens. The effect is somewhere between scientific illustration and psychedelic art, and it adds an aesthetic dimension to Ruscha’s artist books that the earlier, more austere publications lacked.
Colored People is the most debated of Ruscha’s artist books, and responses have varied from amusement to outrage depending on the viewer’s perspective and the cultural moment. The title ensures that the book cannot be received neutrally — it forces a confrontation with language, expectation, and the gap between what words say and what they mean.
Collecting Colored People
First edition (National Excelsior Press, 1972): 4,000 copies, perfect-bound paperback with hand-tinted plates.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $800–$2,500
- Later editions: $150–$400