Edward Ruscha combines technical virtuosity as a draftsman with sophisticated wit in Inch by Inch. His emblematic silhouettes are open to interpretation. The artist worked on this painting for two years before adding a yellow two-inch ruler to the side of the figure. As Ruscha says, “I thought it needed something else, it needed something irrational, something simple and something to finish it in my own mind. One person may look at this and say, ‘Ah every inch a woman,’ or ‘ah, is there some erotic reference there? Is that Pollyanna? Is that somebody serving something?’ It could be. It’s just imagery that takes up my time during the day.”