Somerset Maugham

Date1966-1985

Artist Eddie Arning (1898 - 1993)

MediumPastel on paper

Credit LineGift of Robert Cogswell and Betty Dornberger Cogswell

Object number2024.201.4

DescriptionDrawing of a man in a brown v-neck sweater sanding on a white path between trees and red and yellow flowers.
Label TextEddie Arning was born in Austin County, Texas, in 1898. As a teenager he worked on the family farm, but increasingly disturbing bouts with depression and withdrawal led his family to commit him to the state mental hospital. Arning remained in mental hospitals or nursing homes for the next forty-five years.

Encouraged by a hospital aide, in 1964 Arning began to color in books and then to draw freehand. His earliest drawings featured farm animals and inanimate objects remembered from childhood. Arning gradually introduced human figures that interacted with one another into his compositions.

Most of Arning's drawings derive from illustrations in popular magazines, a technique employed by nineteenth-century amateur artists who often used engravings and lithographs as models or inspirations for their own efforts. Instead of attempting to copy images faithfully, however, Arning selected essential elements and filtered them through his own idiosyncratic palette and fully developed sense of composition and balance. His work displays tremendous consistency and vitality.

InscribedThe work is signed on the reverse by the artist and is also inscribed with the number 651
ProvenanceEdding Arning [1898-1993] (Austin, TX); Robert and Betty Cogswell (Austin, TX); 2024, given to The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA)