BEddie Arning (American, 1898-1993), Untitled (Winston Cigarettes, Boy and Girl with Banjo), 1973 

Oil pastel, 48.6 x 64.1 cm

Eddie Arning, TX (1898–1993)

In December, 1967, Arning was moved to a nursing home as his symptoms of mental illness subsided. He was formally discharged in 1970, but continued to live there until 1973 when he was asked by the nursing home to leave. The reasons for the institution's request are unspecified, but it is cited that Arning refused to follow rules and was uncooperative with staff. He moved in with his widowed sister, Ida Buck, but within a year ceased drawing.

Arning lived with his sister for only three years, and then moved to Westview Manor Nursing Home in MacGregor, Texas. He died on October 15, 1993 after a brief illness at the age of ninety-four. Though he had returned to the familiar setting of an institution, he did not resume his artistic activities.

One of the defining characteristics of Arning's work is his use of source documents. However, rather than copying the images he culled from magazines, he used them as starting points for his original compositions. As curator Barbara R. Luck puts it, Arning used print sources as a "point of departure for his own individualistic interpretations." She further explains, "his reduction of natural forms into stylized patterns of interdependent abstract shapes may be less an impostion of his own view than a method of cutting through superficial trappings in order to expose some cohesive internal order of the objects themselves."_(3)_ He was discerning though, as he deliberately chose elements to include or exclude, to emphasize or rearrange.

He was discriminating also in the pictures he chose for source material. His longtime patron and friend, Alexander Sackton, writes, "A resident of his nursing home, knowing his habit of collecting magazine illlustrations of his work, gave him a print of a Fernand Léger painting. When I visited him the following week he gave me the print; he said he did not use it because 'it's a picture already'."(4)

Particular elements are typical of Arning's developed style. While drawing hands in his pictures, he was careful to include all five digits, but they are usually shown as all the same length, resulting in a comb-like appearance. The bodies of his figures are usually shown frontally, but the head turned in profile in a sort of "Egyptizing" stance. The eye of the figure, however, frequently is drawn as though seen straight on, gazing directly at the viewer. Yet, in compositions with multiple figures, they often interact closely with each other.

In discussing works specifically in the Petullo Collection, it is fascinating to examine the apparent construction methods Arning used in his works. Strong, straight pencil marks can be seen beneath the thick coloring, and the precise evenness of lines suggests that he used a straight edge in his work. This detail can be seen in Three Figures and a Dog, 1972, where the pencil marks are quite clear. While he carefully controlled the construction of his figures and their placement, the surrounding fields of color show vigorous markings whose directional changes contrast with the relative discipline of the tight lines and angularity of the figures.

The captivating pictures of Eddie Arning combine simple, streamlined shapes and motifs that, while easily recognizable, open into a new world of imagery. His visual representations present vignettes to the viewer, and his use of color and energetic marks on the page leave a lasting, intriguing aesthetic impression.