Attempted Bloggery: Charles Addams: Wednesday's Grades

Today there must be thousands upon thousands of fans who would love to own an original Addams Family cartoon from The New Yorker. Yesterday, some of those people had their chance to obtain a deliciously subversive Charles Addams original at a Sotheby's online-only auction and, as with many such contests, it turned out very satisfactorily—for the one high bidder. The supply of Addams Family originals is minimal and demand is continually stoked by a media franchise that is still popular going on sixty years. Under these circumstances, is it any wonder that the lot sold for, including the buyer's premium, $40,320?

Yet this oh-so-desirable drawing remained in Addams's possession for ten years, from its publication in 1954 to the year 1964, when he gifted the original to "Minnie & Jim." Amazingly, this suggests it was an original drawing he could not sell and that he did not wish to keep for himself, even in the year when "The Addams Family" had its television premiere. (Perhaps the recipients had something to do with the show.)

The cartoon is an outstanding Addams Family original about the anguish of the daughter Wednesday (who was still nameless in 1954) as a result of her school grades. The original art is full of wonderful, creepy details. Some of the more subtle ones, like the spider web in the door frame, were probably difficult for readers of the printed magazine to appreciate at all. That still left plenty of others to dwell on.

"Oh, she's furious because they put her on the honor roll at school."
Charles Addams
Original art
The New Yorker, October 16, 1954, p. 25

"Oh, she's furious because they put her on the honor roll at school."
Charles Addams
Framed and glazed original art
The New Yorker, October 16, 1954, p. 25