Attempted Bloggery: The Play at the Plate: Garrett Price Original New Yorker Cover Art

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The Play at the Plate: Garrett Price Original New Yorker Cover Art

Garrett Price, original art, The New Yorker, August 27, 1949

Yet another eBay seller apparently cannot distinguish original magazine cover art from a print. Surely this New Yorker magazine baseball cover by Garrett Price looks for all the world like original art, and not a print. Isn't it odd, then, for the seller to begin the item description with "Product listing is reflective of a framed print?" Reflective? Is the seller, perhaps for legal reasons, trying to avoid calling it original art just in case it turns out not to be the real deal? Yet the seller goes on to deliberately suggest it's worth more than a mere magazine cover print would be by writing, "Similar articles in relation to size and overall composition—the condition of which was [sic] conspicuously lower in terms of quality—were purchased at Heritage Auction for $2,629." Articles? That's evidently a reference to another example of original New Yorker cover art by Garrett Price, also from 1949:

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/illustration-art/garrett-price-american-1897-1979-new-yorker-cover-october-15-1949-oil-on-board-14-x-10-in/a/7016-96239.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

The seller, a consummate stylist, has one final note to clinch the sale: "The reverse side of this particular item is also inclusive of a wired attachment to allow for its display in a position of elevation." When it comes to prose, some people have the gift.

As for a prose description of this cover art, none is really needed. The design is poetry in motion.