Attempted Bloggery: For a Small House by John Held, Jr.

Saturday, June 25, 2022

For a Small House by John Held, Jr.

It's time for us to review the June 9 auction of Illustration Art at Swann Galleries. The sale included an original 1930 book illustration by John Held, Jr.

For a Small House
John Held, Jr.

Swann's listing gave us the publication history and dutifully described the art, but now longtime contributor David from Manhattan has come through and really done his homework. David reports:

The drawing in the most recent Illustration Art sale at Swann was originally described as having Held's signature hidden by the matte. A request to have the back opened for inspection proved definitively that it was not signed. However, the lot description of the drawing as coming from page 72 of a book, Saturday To Monday, was not only accurate, but for any collector interested in The New Yorker, rather fruitful.

The author, Newman Levy, was an early contributor to the magazine, starting with the second issue in February 1925. The book here was a volume of verse poking fun at weekend guests, generously illustrated by the artist with twenty-five drawings plus the dust-jacket, and who was given a co-author credit for his troubles. Only one of the drawings show Held's signature. The Swann lot was for a poem, "For a Small House."

Levy was no Dorothy Parker, but he was popular with the editors, contributing poems, fiction, profiles, "Talk" pieces and a short article on the New York transit situation listed in the archives as "No Department." Several of the Saturday To Monday poems appeared in 1929 under the running title "Weekend Verses." Prior to the start of the magazine, Levy collaborated with Rea Irvin on two volumes of verse, Opera Guyed and Gay But Wistful.

Opera was especially successful, its shelf life extending to decades. The same can't be said for Saturday, which had two printings its first year (1930), then quiet. It was never reprinted. Levy's name disappeared from the magazine for more than a decade, but two poems were published in the early fifties. Only a day after the auction I was able to locate a sound copy of Saturday from a dealer who in the past has been reliably fair with his prices and accurate in his descriptions.