Philip Pearlstein, The Portable Phonograph (A Student Work), 1941
Philip Pearlstein (American b. 1924)
The Portable Phonograph (A Student Work), 1941
Gouache on paper mounted on board, 12 × 15 7/8 in (30.48 × 40.32 cm)
Carnegie Museum of Art, Gift of Philip Pearlstein, 84.20
When a show of Philip Pearlstein’s work came to Pittsburgh, I arranged to interview him at his home and studio in New York for an article in Carnegie Magazine. As a child, Pearlstein had attended classes at the Carnegie Institute, alongside Andy Warhol, and his first notable success as an artist came when during this period when he won a prize in a national art contest sponsored by Scholastic Magazine. When I expressed admiration for the talent he exhibited at an early age he pulled out this early watercolor and handed it to me, to bring back to Pittsburgh as a gift to the museum. I remember wandering around New York for the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out what to do. I spent a good deal of time just sitting in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum, afraid that if I wandered into the museum itself they wouldn’t let me out again.
Bibliography
Henry Adams, American Drawings and Watercolors, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, exhibition catalog, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, May l985, pp. 46.
Henry Adams, "The Pittsburgh Background of Pearlstein's Realism," Carnegie Magazine, May-June l984, pp. 20-24.