Skip to main content
A recycled telephone book with a collage of newspaper, magazine, and cardboard cut-outs.
Untitled (Phone Book)
A recycled telephone book with a collage of newspaper, magazine, and cardboard cut-outs.
A recycled telephone book with a collage of newspaper, magazine, and cardboard cut-outs.
Untitled, Addie Reeves, c. 1961-2001, cardboard, magazine and newspaper cutouts, glue and tape, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, © Estate of Addie Reeves.

Untitled (Phone Book)

Artist (American, 1901 - 2001)
Datec. 1961-2001
MediumCardboard, magazine and newspaper cutouts, glue, and tape
DimensionsBox: 11 1/2 × 9 × 4 1/8 inches (29.2 × 22.9 × 10.5 cm)
Phone Book: 10 1/4 × 8 1/2 × 3 1/2 inches (26 × 21.6 × 8.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of Tom and Betsy Kohler and Family.
Object number2005.7.1
On View
Not on view
Copyright© Estate of Addie Reeves. The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextReeves lovingly assembled this phonebook over a period of at least 30 years. Fashioning the pages out of cardboard, she created the names in her book from individual letters and numbers she cut each day from magazines, church bulletins, and newspapers. Reeves sewed cardboard strips into a shallow box to create compartments for each letter and number, then day after day, glued and taped the names of the people she met as a living reflection of her ever-growing circle of friends and loved ones. Although Reeves would not have considered herself an artist, her phone book embodies the attentive, compulsive habits of assemblage that often distinguish self-taught art, along with the impulse to embellish an ordinary, functional object in a decorative manner. This book reflects both her personal creativity and her devotion to those whose names were pasted within.
A cut-out of the silhouette of a bisected figure standing among grasses.
Betsy Cain
1996
A painting of a brown leg surrounded by white enamel paint on top of pasted newspapers.
Claes Thure Oldenburg
1961
A vertical painting of a figure in all black sprinkling red cherries against a blue background.
Mary Proctor
1995
Portfolio Box and Introductory Pages
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
c. 1748
saturation totem 3
Betsy Cain
2012
A set of six black female silhouettes mounted on a page from a scrapbook.
Unknown
c. 1890
The front of a double-sided drawing featuring a pencil drawing on pink cardboard of the left-si…
Kahlil Gibran
n. d.
The back of a double-sided drawing featuring the profile of the left-side of a man's face in pe…
Kahlil Gibran
n. d.
A circular painting of an angel holding a sword in the center with three yellow jugs on the lef…
Rudolph Valentino Bostic
1993
A golden-toned painting of a Christ figure in the center with a tree below him and a supine fig…
Rudolph Valentino Bostic
1994