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Explore

  • Finding: Source Material in the Archives of American Art
  • Roy Lichtenstein
  • Honore Sharrer
  • Sanford and Chapin
  • Dixie Selden
  • Anne Arnold
  • William Bunn
  • Dottie Attie
  • Ben Shahn
  • Reuben Tam
  • Oscar Bluemner
  • Ray Yoshida
  • Joseph Cornell
  • Joan Semmel
  • Don Eddy
  • Esta Nesbitt

Finding: Source Material in the Archives of American Art

Don Eddy

Archives of American Art

Don Eddy once described himself as “an obsessive-compulsive precisionist.” The execution of his hyperrealistic paintings requires tremendous discipline and scrupulous attention to detail. His process begins with several photographs, each portraying the same arrangement of objects from slightly different angles. Eddy combines elements from these sources to bring sharp focus to every object, every glimmer of light, and every reflective surface. He also contrives new color palettes, ignoring the original color of an object or even its representation in the photograph. In an interview, the artist explained that the final paintings “force the viewer to see the act of translation from the object to the photo to the painting.”


Women hanging laundry

Roy Lichtenstein letter to Ellen H. Johnson

Fireman's wife with curler's in her hair

Envelope for Oscar Bluemner's art motif "Patterson [i.e. Paterson] snow pictures"

Photo captioned "Snow Is a Touch of Magic and Romance"

Color studies of snow

Oscar Bluemner notes and diagram for a landscape painting of Bloomfield

Newspaper clipping of snow covered Siskiyou mountains

Newspaper photo of snowy tree with caption "Hoar Frost"

Reproduction of a photo of ballet dancer Louise Lamoureux

Reproduction of Gurney & Son photo of ballet dancer Kate Pennoyer

Reproduction of a photo of ballet dancer "De Rosa"

Clipping of a ballet dancer

The sad tale of the courtship of the Chevalier Henry Slyfox Wikof

Clipping of a ballet dancer balancing on a man's foot

Reproduction of Diana by Augustus Saint Gaudens

Reproduction of Katherine Cornell as Juliet by Richmond Barthé

Reproduction of Scrubwoman by Mahonri M. Young clipped from National Sculpture Review

Farmer at the Hightstown homestead project

Color proof study for Ben Shahn's Epis

Reproduction of a mock-up by Ben Shahn for a pamphlet for the Office of War Information

Ben Shahn mock-up for a government brochure promoting resettlement

Reproduction of Botticelli's painting The birth of Venus

Reproduction of William Bunn's painting American Venus

Preliminary sketch for painting American Venus

Study of a steamboat

Clipping of a rowboat

True magazine holiday greeting card

Mississippi types of stern-wheelers ply the Magdalena River in Colombia

Esta Nesbitt collage

Xerography study using color filters and collage

Xerography study with filter layering

Cliffs and rocks at Pemaquid Point

Reuben Tam diary entry

Hawaii landscape sketches


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