Untitled (American Flag)

Media - 2016.38.1 - SAAM-2016.38.1_1 - 126230
Copied Eddie Arning, Untitled (American Flag), ca. 1964, crayon and graphite on paper, sheet and image: 22 × 17 in. (55.9 × 43.2 cm) mount: 23 in. × 17 5⁄8 in. (58.4 × 44.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson, 2016.38.1

Artwork Details

Title
Untitled (American Flag)
Artist
Date
ca. 1964
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet and image: 22 × 17 in. (55.9 × 43.2 cm) mount: 23 in. × 17 5⁄8 in. (58.4 × 44.8 cm)
Credit Line
The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson
Mediums Description
crayon and graphite on paper
Classifications
Keywords
  • Object — other — flag
Object Number
2016.38.1
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2016.38.1

Artwork Description

Between 1964 and 1974, Texas artist Eddie Arning made an expansive body of drawings that re-envisioned images found in printed media like magazines. He was introduced to art by an occupational therapist, while living and being treated at a hospital in Austin for a mental condition that may have been schizophrenia. Disregarding realism, Arning distilled the detailed nature of photographic images into stark, stylized drawings that retain only the most essential components of forms and coloration. He often depicted the American flag in his drawings, perhaps reflecting both patriotic pride and his well-known affinity for bright colors and bold graphic design.
(We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection, 2022)

Exhibitions

Media - 2016.38.43R-V - SAAM-2016.38.43R-V_2 - 126225
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection
July 1, 2022–March 26, 2023
Smithsonian American Art Museum
We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection traces the rise of self-taught artists in the twentieth century and examines how, despite wide-ranging societal, racial, and gender-based obstacles, their creativity and