Texas
Craypas on paper.
21 3/4″ x 28 3/4″
Ex Mendelsohn Collection

(1898-1993) Eddie Arning was born in a small German farming town near Austin, Texas. He lived and worked on his family’s farm until the mid- twenties, when he began to have bouts of mental illness. In 1934, he was committed to a mental institution. After being institutionalized for many years, he was introduced to crayons and for the next decade began his artistic output of over 200 drawings. Arning worked with crayons and craypas on paper. Most of his early subjects were objects from everyday life; farm animals, plants, farm implements, automobiles, windmills and musical instruments. Later in his artistic career, he used scenes from magazine advertisements as inspiration. Arning stopped painting in 1973. His drawings can be found in numerous museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Smithsonian, and the American Folk Art Museum, New York.