Illustration Art Sale Boasts Advertisements, Cartoons, Fashion, Theater
Edward Gorey, Another Ninteenth-Century Moment Musical, possibly published in Look magazine, 1970s. Estimate: $5,000-7,500
New York — Swann Galleries will open the winter 2021 season on Thursday, January 28 with a sale of Illustration Art featuring the Dick McDonough Collection of Golf Illustration.
Golf advertisements, cover art, calendar designs, cartoons, and more, as well as a curated selection of sports illustrations, are among an offering of works from the avid collector and esteemed author on the subject, Dick McDonough. Highlights include Howard Chandler Christy’s watercolor story illustration for Arthur Ruhl’s A Break in Training published in Scribner’s July 1902 issue ($8,000-12,000); Edward Penfield’s Golf Calendar for 1900, with nine prints, each representing a hole on a nine-hole course ($8,000-12,000); J.C. Leyendecker’s circa-1920 study for a cigarette advertisement, featuring a golfer lighting a cigarette ($7,000-10,000); Ruth Eastman’s Hitting the Links of Palm Beach, gouache on paper, a proposed cover for The Saturday Evening Post, mid-1920s ($5,000-7,500); and Bill Randall’s Broken Iron, an advertisement for Dodge featuring a couple leaving the golf course ($1,000-1,500). Many of the famous illustrators represented in the collection were fans of the sport, including James Montgomery Flagg, Arthur B. Frost, Lealand Gustavson, John Held, Jr., and Arthur Sarnoff. A small group of fine printed graphics and posters completes the section.
Additional sport illustrations include Joseph F. Kernan’s College Football, oil on canvas, the October 15, 1932 cover of The Saturday Evening Post ($25,000-35,000); Leslie Thrasher’s Conference on the Mound, oil on canvas, also a cover for The Saturday Evening Post published June 8, 1912 ($8,000-12,000); and Charles Addams’s One Pin, watercolor and gouache, a cartoon for The New Yorker published in 1962 ($6,000-9,000).
A strong showing of advertisements features a 1923 oil-and-graphite study for a Kuppenheimer clothing ad by J.C. Leyendecker ($7,000-10,000); What Should a School Child’s Breakfast Be?, oil on canvas, a 1936 ad for Cream of Wheat by Haddon Sundbloom ($4,000-6,000); a gouache work for Cities Service Gasoline featuring a worker cleaning Santa’s windshield ($4,000-6,000); and John Falter’s 1942 image for Four Roses Whiskey featuring “gentlemen in the know” ($4,000-6,000).
Charles Schulz leads a selection of comic strips with an original 1960 four-panel Peanuts comic strip featuring Linus and Lucy ($8,000-12,000). Otto Messmer is present with original Felix the Cat comics from 1933 and 1934 ($4,000-6,000, each). Also available is a comic book illustration from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane by Werner Roth and Vince Colletta ($1,000-1,500).
Cover art for The New Yorker includes Family Tree, watercolor and gouache, by Constantin Alajalov published February 12, 1938 ($3,000-4,000); and two covers by Arthur Getz with Schoolgirls in Museum, tempera on paper, published March 23, 1963, and Studio Party, ink and watercolor, published August 2, 1976 ($2,000-3,000, each); as well as A Day at the Beach, watercolor, ink and gouache, by Barbara Shermund published August 5, 1944 ($2,000-3,000).
Works of narrative art created for books and magazines by twentieth century illustrators include a three illustrations by N.C. Wyeth for H.W. Longfellow’s The Courtship of Miles Standish (estimates ranging from $5,000-7,500, $4,000-6,000, and $3,000-4,000). Edmund Dulac is present with a watercolor, pen and ink illustration for the tale of Bluebeard published in The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales From the Old French, retold by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch ($6,000-9,000). Edward Gorey’s Another Nineteenth-Century Moment Musical, pen and ink, possibly published in Look magazine in the 1970s ($5,000-7,500); and Elbert McGran Jackson’s 1924 oil-on-canvas story illustration for Smoke of Battle by Robert W. Chambers, published in Cosmopolitan ($3,000-5,000) are set to cross the block. An offering of children’s book illustrators include Eric Carle, Arnold Lobel, William Pène du Bois, Clement Hurd and more.
Limited previewing (by appointment only) will be available through January 27, to be scheduled directly with a specialist in advance and conforming to strict safety guidelines. Swann Galleries staff will prepare condition reports and provide additional photographs of material on request. Advance order bids can be placed with the specialist for the sale or on Swann’s website, and phone bidding will be available. Live online bidding platforms will be the Swann Galleries App, Invaluable, and Live Auctioneers. The complete catalogue and bidding information is available at www.swanngalleries.com and on the Swann Galleries App.
