Snub out the Habit

The Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, encourages smokers to quit their addiction today.

Eddie Arning's Man with Newport Cigarettes is not exactly a "poster child" for the Great American Smokeout. In fact, the work was probably modeled on a cigarette advertisement of the time.

Eddie Arning, like many self-taught artists, used magazine advertisements and illustrations as models or inspiration for his work.…

Institutionalized for most of his adult life, Arning was introduced to drawing in 1964 by a hospital worker who supplied him with materials. Arning's medium from 1964 to 1969 was Crayolas. In 1969, he switched to oil pastels, or "Cray-pas." Regardless of his media, Arning always worked in the same manner, covering the entire surface of the paper with dense strokes of color. He stopped drawing in 1974, a year after leaving his nursing home.

Source: Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: For the National Museum of American Art by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990).

Pictured: Eddie Arning, 1898–1993, Man with Newport Cigarettes, 1970, oil pastel on paper, 25 5/8 x 19 3/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Sackton.