Yet another batch of phone books showed up on my porch today.  I dutifully threw the old set into the recycle bin and stuffed the new set under the telephone table.

Even though I haven’t opened a phone book for years.

But maybe I should have sent those phone books to Alex Queral, the Philadelphia artist who makes portraits out of the bound pages of telephone books.

(Ringo Starr, by Alex Queral)

“Each face is often painted with a monochromatic wash to distinguish the portrait from the pages. The background remains untouched to reveal the original source with its readable list of names and numbers.”

In addition to the above portrait of Ringo, Queral has made phone book portraits of actors Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood, musicians Keith Richards and Sting, and politicians such as President Jimmy Carter, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and President Barack Obama.

Alex Queral’s phone book art is on display at Philadelphia International Airport, in Terminal F, Concourse 2.  To find out more about Alex Queral and see lots more of these phone book portraits, see his profile page at Project Gallery.

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