The Real Inside Story

Roy De Forest, The Real Inside Story, 1973, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.89
Copied Roy De Forest, The Real Inside Story, 1973, acrylic on canvas, 66 x 72 1⁄8 in. (167.5 x 183.2 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.89

Artwork Details

Title
The Real Inside Story
Artist
Date
1973
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
66 x 72 1⁄8 in. (167.5 x 183.2 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation
Mediums
Mediums Description
acrylic on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Animal — horse
  • Animal — dog
  • Figure — head
  • Landscape — tree
Object Number
1986.6.89
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1986.6.89

Artwork Description

In the early 1960s, De Forest turned from making scrap metal constructions and abstract paintings to works in which animals, totemic images, and fantastical beings engage us with storytelling and game playing. In The Real Inside Story, cutaway walls conflate inside and outside worlds, and animals and humans seem both toylike and symbolic. De Forest called art “one of the last strongholds of magic” and described his richly colored and textured fantasy worlds as “unknowable [though] hauntingly familiar.”


Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection, 2014