typewriters in art

There are two kinds of typewriter art: works of art created on the typewriter and works of art in which the typewriter as a machine plays a role:

ROYAL ROAD TEST
In 1966 Edward Ruscha set out with his friends Mason Williams and Patrick Blackwell to throw a Royal typewriter from the window of a moving car at 90 mph. A year later, the project resulted in a now much acclaimed artists' book: Royal Road Test.

CHARLES JOFFE (1920)
Best know as a painter and builder of striking wooden creations in bright colors. Several times he asked himself the question what would have happened if Ben Franklin or William Shakespeare had owned typewriters. **

KEVIN O'CALLAGHAN
and a group of students from the New Yorks School of Visual Arts, 2001)produced a series of art works using obsolete typewriters to create "The next best... ding!"***

CLAES OLDENBURG
Among the best known examples of typewriters as art is the soft typewriter and the typewriter eraser made with Coosje van Bruggen. The soft machine is in a private collection, the eraser is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

SHERYL ORING (American)
Created Writer's Block, an installation of 600 caged typewriters in memory of the book burnings in Nazi Germany. The installation traveled from Berlin to other European capitals and on to the US. www.writers-block.org.

ANDRÉ PELGRIM (Dutch, 1941)
Inspired by the design and purpose of manual typewriters, he has produced woodcuts, linoleum cuts and paintings

(information from virtual museum of typewriters)