Various Small Fires and Milk was self-published by Ruscha through the National Excelsior Press in 1964, one year after Twentysix Gasoline Stations. The edition consisted of 400 copies. The book contains fifteen black-and-white photographs of small fires — a lit match, a cigarette lighter, a burning cigarette, a flare, a candle, a pipe being lit — followed by a single photograph of a glass of milk. The juxtaposition is unexplained: fire, fire, fire, fire… milk.
The glass of milk is the book’s punchline, and its meaning has been debated since 1964. Is it an extinguisher? A palate cleanser? A non sequitur? An act of bathos that deflates the book’s accumulation of small fires? Ruscha has declined to explain, and the ambiguity is the point: the book operates at the boundary between sense and nonsense, inviting interpretation while refusing to confirm any reading.
The photographs themselves are deliberately artless — flat lighting, centered compositions, no attempt at aesthetic beauty. Ruscha was continuing the program begun with Gasoline Stations: using photography not as an expressive medium but as a recording device, producing images that are as neutral as catalog illustrations. The art lies not in the individual images but in the concept — the act of collecting and sequencing mundane subjects according to a predetermined system.
Various Small Fires was the book that convinced the art world that Ruscha’s first book was not a one-off curiosity but the beginning of a sustained artistic project. The series would continue through the 1960s and 1970s, each book more audacious than the last, establishing Ruscha as one of the most original artists of his generation.
Collecting Various Small Fires and Milk
First edition (National Excelsior Press, 1964): 400 copies, perfect-bound paperback.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $5,000–$15,000
- Second printing (1970): $1,000–$3,000
- Facsimile reprints: $15–$50
Scarcer than Gasoline Stations in first edition. The small print run and fragile format make fine copies rare.