James Thurber: Marriages Are Made in Heaven

James Thurber, noting that "Marriages Are Made in Heaven," makes an appropriately celestial drawing on stationery of the École des Beaux-Arts. The composition and the figures are delightful, but note how oddly Thurber has linked the arms of the couple as if they are ribbons. There's no point where one person's arm ends and the other's begins. While this could be mere shoddy draughtsmanship, the looping arms might instead be meant to represent lines of orbit, something that would be in keeping with the heavenly theme of the drawing.

James Thurber
Marriages Are Made in Heaven

James Thurber
Marriages Are Made in Heaven

James Thurber's signature

James Thurber
eBay Listing accessed November 13, 2017

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Marriages-are-Made-in-Heaven-by-James-Thurber/182877265505?hash=item2a94559e61:g:RZAAAOSwoF1ZwYYi

James Thurber
eBay item description

February 27, 2021 Update:  The Thurber art has new photos, new frame, new price, and a new eBay seller, apparently, in the same town:

James Thurber
Marriages Are Made in Heaven

James Thurber
Marriages Are Made in Heaven

Caption

James Thurber
Marriages Are Made in Heaven

James Thurber
Marriages Are Made in Heaven

James Thurber
Marriages Are Made in Heaven
eBay listing accessed February 27, 2021

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ink-Drawing-By-James-G-Thurber-Marriages-Are-Made-In-Heaven-Undated/184680967950?hash=item2affd7ef0e:g:chIAAOSwCh1gNvdd#viTabs_0

James Thurber
Marriages Are Made in Heaven
eBay item description

December 28, 2022 Update:  Plot twist! I just found out that this drawing was sold back in 2017, not on eBay where I had been following it and not in Gilbert, Arizona where the eBay sellers were both located, but at a Newark, Ohio auction house approximately forty miles from Thurber's home town of Columbus. It went for a shockingly low $450 plus a 20% premium. This is an all-too-common scenario wherein the seller of a minor treasure initially asks too much, gets frustrated by the almost predictable lack of interest, and ultimately holds a fire sale and accepts too little. It reads like a morality play.

James Thurber
Apple Tree Auction Center
September 7, 2017

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/james-thurber-1894-1961-ink-on-paper-marriages-ar-3362-c-f3e443d8da?objectID=122924165&algIndex=archive_prod&queryID=6a8e8c8a992c3a9316fa7b5b74cf7ec2#

ames Thurber
Apple Tree Auction Center item description

Note:  I would love to see any other example of a drawing by James Thurber in which arms are linked in this strange manner, if such a thing exists anywhere else. Of course, any Thurber drawing is always welcome here, even an anatomically correct one, again if such a thing exists.

Happy 26th anniversary to my wife!

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Gahan Wilson for the Thurber House

"There she is again!" The overbearing woman of of gigantic proportions originally created by James Thurber now peers onto the porch of Thurber House itself at 77 Jefferson Avenue in Columbus, the former home of Thurber's family. The original illustration by Gahan Wilson mostly is in his own style, but it also echoes one of Thurber's most famous images, that of the house indistinguishable from the imposing woman who dominates it.

Gahan Wilson, "There she is again!"
The Thurber House, 1985

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Yorker-Cartoon-Artist-Gahan-Wilson-Signed-Orig-Ink-Drawing-Thurber-Columbus-/370935918903?pt=Art_Drawings&hash=item565d80f137&nma=true&si=UB68sj2DvLx%252F9kdb54zXrlCgzYs%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

The porch of Thurber House at 77 Jefferson Avenue in Columbus is depicted in the drawing by Gahan Wilson

http://thurberhouse.org/assets/images/thurber_house_ext.jpg

Gahan Wilson's drawing for Thurber House is an homage to this famous James Thurber drawing.

http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-three-best-episodes-of-star-trek.html

James Thurber, The New Yorker, March 23, 1935, page 4

Thanks to Michael Maslin for helpin me locate the first publication of this drawing.

Wilson also created a limited edition print, which alludes to Thurber's classic short story "The Night the Ghost Got In."

Gahan Wilson, "I told you we should never have come to this terrible place!"
The Thurber House, #9 in an edition of 10[?]

Detail

The caption

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Yorker-Cartoon-Artist-Gahan-Wilson-Signed-Print-Thurber-House-Columbus-Ohio-/390694358462?nma=true&si=UB68sj2DvLx%252F9kdb54zXrlCgzYs%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

The notorious staircase in Thurber House where the ghost haunted James Thurber's family is depicted in Gahan Wilson's print.

http://www.globespinners.com/2010/10/ghosts-romp-in-columbus-thurber-house/

James Thurber's illustration to "The Night the Ghost Got In" inspires Gahan Wilson's print.

http://thurberhouse.wordpress.com/2011/10/

Note:  Attempted Bloggery has been mentioned once again on Ink Spill after solving one of those minor mysteries of the Thurber universe. Read all about it here.

Gahan Wilson's work lurks in various posts around the blog. See it here.

The website for Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio is here.

Gahan Wilson's work for the New Yorker may be found in the Cartoon Bank here.

Some of James Thurber's New Yorker work is in the Condé Nast Store here, but almost nothing is in the Cartoon Bank. I don't get it.

The documentary "Gahan Wilson:  Born Dead, Still Weird" by Steven-Charles Jaffe has a useful website here. The film is being screened in Beverly Hills from November 22 to 28.

Gahan Wilson's 2009 radio interview on the Leonard Lopate Show is archived here.

You can find the latest news about Gahan Wilson on Ink Spill here.

Similarly, news about James Thurber is on Ink Spill here.

There are also a few illustrations by Gahan Wilson on The Pictorial Arts blog here.

Additional posts about James Thurber may be seen here.

I heard on the news that some 40,000 books have been written about President Kennedy, but all I could manage was one blog post about him, which is here.

Tell me you haven't heard! The movie "Catching Fire" opens this Friday. You can read what I had to say about The Hunger Games trilogy here.

0954

James Thurber's Premonitions

An original 1938 New Yorker cartoon by James Thurber was listed on eBay in February of this year at $20,000. The seller warned that "This will be up for seven days only—if it doesn't sell, to Sotheby's it goes."

Well, it didn't go to Sotheby's, at least not yet. In fact, it didn't go anywhere so far. But its asking price was reduced to $15,000—still up in the stratosphere, mind you—and some welcome additional photos of the artwork were added to the listing. The provenance is reported to be writer Peter De Vries and Peter L. Stern and Co., Inc., of Boston.

Thurber's drawing takes advantage of our tendency to read images, like captions, from left to right. The use of the dark background lends it an unusual boldness. The woman's gait is rendered unconvincingly and the hands, the ones Thurber hasn't avoided drawing all together, are extremely formless and loose. The facial expressions, on the other hand, are peerless.

"You and your premonitions!"
James Thurber
Original art
The New Yorker, May 21, 1938, page 24
Men, Women and Dogs, 1943
The Thurber Carnival, 1945, page 354

After the original listing, the eBay seller added three additional photos of the original artwork which is framed behind reflective glass:

"You and your premonitions!"
James Thurber
Original art
The New Yorker, May 21, 1938, page 24
Men, Women and Dogs, 1943
The Thurber Carnival, 1945, page 354

"You and your premonitions!"
James Thurber
Original art
The New Yorker, May 21, 1938, page 24
Men, Women and Dogs, 1943
The Thurber Carnival, 1945, page 354

"You and your premonitions!"
James Thurber
Original art
The New Yorker, May 21, 1938, page 24
Men, Women and Dogs, 1943
The Thurber Carnival, 1945, page 354

James Thurber
eBay Listing Ended February 19, 2018

https://www.ebay.com/itm/JAMES-THURBER-ORIGINAL-ART-FOR-PUBLISHED-1938-NEW-YORKER-CARTOON-AMAZING-/232663723171?hash=item362bd6aca3%3Ag%3AjKwAAOSwL9pagiEO&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

James Thurber
eBay Item Description

"You and your premonitions!"
James Thurber
The New Yorker, May 21, 1938, page 24

"You and your premonitions!"
James Thurber
Original art
The New Yorker, May 21, 1938, page 24
Men, Women and Dogs, 1943
The Thurber Carnival, 1945, page 354

https://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1938-05-21#folio=024

Why on earth should this caption be capitalized?

"You and Your Premonitions!"
James Thurber
The Thurber Carnival, 1945, page 354

January 1, 2019 Update:  The price has been reduced by another $2000—and it's still high!

Note:  This piece and its eBay offering have been discussed on Ink Spill.

Readers with other original Thurber art to show off are encouraged to show it off here.


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