Road Trip!
Hit the road virtually with printmaker Robert Cottingham and learn about his primary subject—commercial signs.
Cottingham found this sign in Little Rock, Arkansas, and said, "This deteriorated sign originally read 'Drugs.' But the word, in combination with the sign's peeling paint, produced a negative connotation. I took the opportunity to substitute 'Blues,' one of the words I had listed in my diary of specifically American words and phrases. The message now refers both to the various tones of the color blue used in the image, as well as to the one truly American from of music—and basis of all jazz—the Blues."
Take a trip in search of more inspirational signs and hear Cottingham's narration in our online exhibition Eyeing America: The Prints of Robert Cottingham. What cities would you like to visit for great signs? What typically American words would you seek?
Source: Jacquelyn Days Serwer. Eyeing America: The Prints of Robert Cottingham (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, 1999) online exhibition at http://americanart.si.edu/collections/exhibits/cottingham/index.html.
Pictured: Robert Cottingham, born 1935, Blues, 1989, color aquatint on paper, 18 x 18 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of an anonymous donor.
Hit the road virtually with printmaker Robert Cottingham and learn about his primary subject—commercial signs.
Cottingham found this sign in Little Rock, Arkansas, and said, "This deteriorated sign originally read 'Drugs.' But the word, in combination with the sign's peeling paint, produced a negative connotation. I took the opportunity to substitute 'Blues,' one of the words I had listed in my diary of specifically American words and phrases. The message now refers both to the various tones of the color blue used in the image, as well as to the one truly American from of music—and basis of all jazz—the Blues."