Attempted Bloggery: November 2024

Friday, November 22, 2024

Monsieur and Madame Gregory's Copy of Le voyage de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff

On Wednesday, at Bonhams, London, a unique first edition of Le voyage de Babar (1932) was sold. It bore an original drawing by Jean de Brunhoff, Babar's creator, of the beloved elephant in a hat shop. The salesman is offering Babar something fashionable but, perhaps, too small and insignificant for a royal elephant of his stature.

The presale estimate was 10,000 to 20,000 GBP.

Jean de Brunhoff
Bonhams London, Knightsbridge, listing accessed October 27, 2024

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/29882/lot/58/brunhoff-jean-de-le-voyage-de-babar-first-edition-authors-presentation-copy-with-full-page-pen-and-ink-drawing-of-babar-in-a-hat-shop-opposite-the-title-page-paris-editions-du-jardin-des-modes-1932/?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UK_STS_COL_BOK_29882_1_25102024&cid=18130931

The buyers' premium for this lot is 28%.

Sold! Hats off to Babar!

That comes to a 10,000 GBP hammer price plus the 2,800 GBP premium.

Note: I doubt there are very many Babar books by Jean de Brunhoff, or even by his son Laurent, that are drawn upon quite so exquisitely but, even so, readers who feel they've come upon a contender are encouraged to relay images here for posting. And a tip of the hat to you too.

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Thursday, November 21, 2024

A Copy of Feasts for All Seasons by Roy Andres de Groot Signed by Illustrator Tom Funk

The Dawn Treader Book Shop of Ann Arbor offers a copy of Roy Andres de Groot's Feasts for All Seasons (1966) signed, according to the bookseller, by the illustrator, Tom Funk. Funk is known for his many New Yorker spot illustrations. The signature, Tom, looks nothing like his familiar signature on New Yorker art with that ever-present lower case, cursive t.

Tom Funk
AbeBooks listing accessed November 19, 2024

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=32030200112&searchurl=attrs%3Dsgnd%26ds%3D20%26kn%3DTom%2BFunk%26p%3D1%26rollup%3Don%26sgnd%3Don%26sortby%3D17%26sp%3D0%26spo%3D20&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image7

Note: Please let me know if you've got some tomfunkery in your library like this.

04806

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Tom Funk: Unidentified Driving Object

A drawing by longtime New Yorker spot artist Tom Funk shows aliens at the wheel of a fanciful car. Was this indeed published in the pages of The New Yorker?

Tom Funk
eBay listing ended August 22, 2015

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1950s-Pen-pencil-scetch-by-Tom-Funk-Artist-New-Yorker-Magazine-signed-/231654739241?hash=item35efb2cd29%3Ag%3A6-AAAOSwjVVVltPD&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Tom Funk
eBay item description

Tom Funk
eBay bid history
A single bid is placed way too early.

Note: Original works of art by Tom Funk, including spots, are welcome here at Attempted Bloggery, the blog that saves the occasional eBay listing for nine years before posting it. Publication information for this drawing, should anyone somehow know it, would also be welcome.

04806

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Saul Steinberg: Gallery Flyer from 1952

Contributor Scott Burns has turned up a variant on the Saul Steinberg lettersheet we saw here last week issued for the 1952 art exhibition "Drawings" upon which gallerists Sidney Janis and Betty Parsons collaborated. This flyer, unlike the lettersheet, does not have two blank sides on the inside. Rather, the four drawings from the outside of the lettersheet are folded into the inside of the flyer, and the outside of the flyer is a wraparound drawing of Venice's Piazza San Marco with the printed announcement of the show.

A Wikipedia photo dated 2021 is shown for reference. Steinberg's vantage point was evidently higher up in the colonnade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_San_Marco#/media/File:P
iazza_San_Marco_(Venice)_at_night-msu-2021-6449-.jpg

Note: I am grateful to Scott Burns who seems to know what I want to see even before I do. This is his nineteenth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.

If you too have something I want to see by Saul Steinberg, feel free to send a few images without my having to ask.

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Monday, November 18, 2024

My Entry in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #922

In The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest #922 from the issue of November 18, 2024, an attic full of rats is looking through a hole in the floor at the couple below. My submission is shown here. The drawing is by Lonnie Millsap.

"I never realized we had an infestation."

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Sunday, November 17, 2024

Saul Steinberg: The 1966 Sidney Janus Gallery Catalogue

Tireless contributor David from Manhattan reports on a 1966 catalogue from the Sidney Janis Gallery of New York that includes the Saul Steinberg work Art Lovers sold just last week at Swann Galleries. He writes:

1966 was a very good year for Saul Steinberg, beginning with a hugely successful show at Galerie Maeght in Paris. But then, all through the summer and early fall, he prepared for an exhibition with Sidney Janis. According to his biographer, Deirdre Bair, Steinberg compared his labor to "an exam in a French Lycée." But it paid off. The 11 x 8 1/2" catalogue lists 76 works, with only 20 illustrated, all in black-and-white, and not particularly well-reproduced, though Art Lovers in the number 10 spot was given a two-page spread at the midpoint as compensation. But buyers were not deterred by the listless reproductions. A number of his pictures involved viewing or creating works of art, and this turned out to be rather prescient. Even allowing for exaggeration and rounding off of numbers, Steinberg happily wrote to Aimé Maeght: "I sold 80 pictures at respectable prices—even more and at higher prices than Paris. Naturally this gives me great pleasure."

Naturally. Steinberg hadn't had a show in Manhattan in thirteen years, and perhaps art buyers were getting impatient. 1966 was also the year the artist received sage advice on the art of copyright from his Hungarian lawyer, Alexander Lindey, who not so coincidentally was an author of a textbook on copyright law. Inside the front cover is a great deal of white space, with only "© 1966 By Saul Steinberg" in tiny print at top. Steinberg had listened, even if he didn't borrow Lindey's book. The list of works in this show, with some titles familiar, and others intriguing, makes one hungry for another Steinberg exhibition.

Front cover

11. Dealers

Back cover
Ariadne (large detail)

Ariadne (1966) today resides in the North Carolina Museum of Art. Here's the full image:

Ariadne (1966)
Saul Steinberg
North Carolina Museum of Art

https://ncartmuseum.org/object/ariadne/

Note: Today's words and images are provided by David from Manhattan, to whom once again I offer my sincere thanks. This is his sixty-fourth contribution to the blog.

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Saturday, November 16, 2024

Saul Steinberg: Gallery Lettersheet from 1952

Today David from Manhattan writes of a rare eBay acquisition related to Saul Steinberg, who has been our subject these past three days:

Saul Steinberg was close to Betty Parsons, the artist and brilliant gallery owner who was an early champion of mid-century art. But even though, like others, he went over to the more commercial Sidney Janis Gallery in 1951, he made sure he didn't abandon Betty. When Steinberg's first Janis show opened in January 1952, the show included the Parsons Gallery, just across the hall from the Janis Gallery at East 57th St. This lettersheet, possibly a suggestion of Parsons with final approval of the drawings by Steinberg, is four pages, 9 1/2 x 6 7/8", illustrated front & back, and when opened, pages 2 & 3 are waiting to be written on. The text on front makes it clear the exhibition was a joint effort of the two gallerists. This was on eBay years ago as a Buy It Now listing. Memory suggests the price was around $50. But no complaints here, even if there wasn't a letter inside signed "ST" or maybe "Saul." After this show, the artist would have a self-imposed exile from exhibitions in New York until 1966.

Note: I'm still thanking David from Manhatton for his ongoing contributions to the blog, and I'm still counting them. The number is now 63.

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Friday, November 15, 2024

Saul Steinberg: Art Lovers

On Tuesday, a drawing by Saul Steinberg from 1966, Art Lovers, was offered at auction by Swann Galleries.

Art Lovers, 1966
Saul Steinberg

Saul Steinberg
Swann Galleries Modern & Post-War Art, Sale 2685, Lot 44, accessed 3 hours before the sale on November 12

https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/Lots/auction-lot/SAUL-STEINBERG-(1914---1999-AMERICAN)-Art-Lovers-(-10)?saleno=2685&lotNo=44&refNo=823434

The drawing sold for a hammer price of $7,500.

The work was sold in a Kulicke frame. Longtime friend David from Manhattan provides an exclusive peek at what's under the frame:

The sale of this drawing

covers only the physical drawing itself.

The artist reserves all other rights

in it, including copyright."

Kulicke Frames, Inc., label

Sidney Janis Gallery label
"Ink and Color Crayon"
I am assured that there is indeed ink but no color crayon present.

Note: My thanks to fellow art lover David from Manhattan for providing the additional images. This is the sixty-second post to which he's contributed something unique.

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Thursday, November 14, 2024

Blog Post 4800: Saul Steinberg, Artist

Was Saul Steinberg an artist?
—Deidre Bair

Funny you should ask. That baffling question posed by Saul Steinberg's own biographer Deirdre Bair has been addressed several times by art critics and others. Yet at least a few of us who champion Steinberg's work from the sidelines are still infuriated by the very idea. Can the question over Steinberg's status as an artist, as opposed to a cartoonist, ever be put to rest?

A new Spanish exhibition has the very deliberate and telling title "Saul Steinberg, artista." Write me if you need a translation. That should be taken as an answer to Bair's query, one that will, it is to be hoped, endure. This show is the first in Spain ever dedicated to the work of Steinberg and it is his largest solo exhibition ever. It is currently on view at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid.

I'm pleased to report that gallery photos have been provided to this blog courtesy of a recent visitor; let's call him our man in Madrid. In addition, I have interspersed seven promotional photos from the Fundación Juan March's website with all the proper title, ownership, and copyright information. Going even beyond that, I have added two New Yorker magazine covers which correspond to the original art on display because—let's face it—we all know I can't help myself.

So here, for starters, is the exhibition entrance with an enlarged photograph of Steinberg down on the floor surrounded by his drawings. Is he checking them over? Choosing among them? Or is he just posing for the camera?

False documents:

Looking up:

Interior:

The Museum, c. 1949:

Compare with the March's scan:

The Museum, c. 1949
Saul Steinberg
Carol and Douglas Cohen Collection
© The Saul Steinberg Foundation / VEGAP, Madrid, 2024

https://www.march.es/en/madrid/exhibitions/saul-steinberg-artist

Two maps: a study or rough alongside the famous New Yorker cover art.

View of the World From 9th Avenue, 1976

Saul Steinberg
Private collection

https://www.march.es/en/madrid/exhibitions/saul-steinberg-artist

And, while we're on the subject of New Yorker covers:

New York Taxis, 1977

Saul Steinberg

Carol and Douglas Cohen Collection

https://www.march.es/en/madrid/exhibitions/saul-steinberg-artist

Kamerun, Central Africa, 1987:

Cat and bird:

Sleeping cat, Eames Fiberglass armchair:

Family portraits:

Rainbow, 1974:

Mural:

The exhibition space:

Still Life, 1980:

Drawing table, 1966:

Straphangers, 1964:

City Scape, 1956

Saul Steinberg

Michael Cohen Collection

https://www.march.es/en/madrid/exhibitions/saul-steinberg-artist

Steinberg's masks, including some photographs by Inge Morath:

Untitled, 1961-1962

Saul Steinberg

Museum der Moderne Salzburg

https://www.march.es/en/madrid/exhibitions/saul-steinberg-artist

Masks and landscapes:

A landscape, drawing and writing the Steinberg name, a photo, and a Galerie Maeght poster:

The landscape on the right may be seen in the photograph of Steinberg on the floor displayed at the entrance to the exhibition:

Piano lessons, a drawing on music paper:

1978:

Happy birthday to friend Aldo Buzzi, construction, 1974:

Still Life Chair, 1981

Saul Steinberg

Galerie Claude Bernard

https://www.march.es/en/madrid/exhibitions/saul-steinberg-artist

Steinberg's books:

Steinberg's many New Yorker covers:

They're worth a closer look:

And:

The catalogue:

https://tienda.march.es/catalogos-de-exposiciones/16678-saul-steinberg-artista.html

Nueva exposición:

"Saul Steinberg, artista"

La March

Untitled, 1963

Saul Steinberg

Private collection

https://www.march.es/en/madrid/exhibitions/saul-steinberg-artist

My thanks to our man in Madrid for all the swell photos and for staying out of Havana. All the artwork shown above, as you well know, is © The Saul Steinberg Foundation. "Saul Steinberg, artista" will be on view at the Fundación Juan March through January 12, 2025. See it and let me know your answer to my own impertinent question: Was Saul Steinberg a cartoonist?