The art and life of Eddie Arning

Eddie Arning (1898–1993), a self-taught artist from Texas, after having lived in state mental institutions for thirty years, between 1964 and 1974 created more than 2000 crayon and pastel drawings. Arning's artistic career coincided with a unparalleled period of creative stimulation and emotional interaction in his life with a group of supporters, Helen and Martin Mayfield, Rob and Betty Cogswell, and Alexander Sackton. Sackton, in particular, not only befriended and encouraged Arning, he established and maintained the artist's career by tirelessly promoting his work among collectors, dealers, scholars, and curators for nearly thirty years. Stressing the importance of the relationships between Arning and his friends, and of the records Sackton maintained on him, this study incorporates key elements of Arning's life into examinations of his oeuvre, the development of his career, and his place within the field of self-taught art from the viewpoint of the unique circumstances of his life, especially as represented in and seen through his art. In doing so, I situate the life of the artist within the space created by the creative act and view Arning from the perspective of his relationship to his art.; I focus upon the critical evaluation and formal analysis of Arning's art and upon his development as an individual artist and in larger cultural contexts. While a self-taught artist is, by definition, an individual with no studio training, Arning was part of and worked within a continuum of artistic and social influences and traditions. Thus, I shift away from an examination of such work as the product of one who worked outside the mainstream art world to focus instead on the process of making images and their place within a larger interpretive network. I incorporate biographical-based description and considerations of Arning's art, with a particular focus upon the aesthetics of his art and stylistic influences upon the artist. As a result, this study establishes a new forum for the discussion of self-taught art, posits new directions for interactive study between areas of art history, and provides a bridge between traditional art historical subjects and a relatively new categorization within the field.