An original New Yorker drawing by Michael Maslin was on the auction block yesterday in Rockville, Maryland. The cartoon shows a traffic stop in which a police officer has pulled over a produce truck driver.
The artwork comes to be nicely framed and glazed:
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"Sorry, but I'm going to have to issue you a summons for reckless grammar and driving without an apostrophe." Michael Maslin Framed original art The New Yorker, September 7, 1987, p. 37 Mixed Company: Cartoons by Michael Maslin. Fireside, 1990, p. 3 |
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Michael Maslin's signature |
Weschler's, the auction house, has misidentified the artist as Eric Maskin. Maskin, born in 1950, is really a Nobel Prize winning economist and mathematician who teaches at Harvard. His accomplishments are considerable but, in the last analysis, he does not draw cartoons for The New Yorker. There's always a chance, when the artist is incorrectly identified, that interested bidders might never be able to find the piece. Twelve hours before the sale, it seemed this might be the case. With an estimate of $50 to $100 the bidding was at an anemic $35:
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Michael Maslin Weschler's listing accessed May 19, 2025, twelve hours before the auction |
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Michael Maslin Weschler's item description |
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[End of Weschler's listing] |
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With a spot drawing by Judith Shahn and a cartoon by Michael Maslin |
Note: This blogger would be happy to post other examples of original art by Michael Maslin. Or, better still, Eric Maskin.
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