April Fool! Roz Chast Preliminary New Yorker Cover Art

Roz Chast's rough for her New Yorker cover of April 6, 2009 was sold at Heritage Auctions on November 4 in the Signature Illustration Art sale. The subject is right there on the strap: April Fool!

The drawing comes framed:

The published cover has been set in the back of the frame with all its many modifications from the rough. The title April Fool—no exclamation point—is in the magazine's table of contents but the words no longer appear in the art.

The night before the auction, online bidding had reached an impressive $2,100—that comes to $2,625 with the buyer's premium.

Roz Chast
Heritage Auction listing accessed seventeen hours prior to the sale

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/works-on-paper/roz-chast-american-b-1954-april-fools-the-new-yorker-preliminary-cover-april-6-2009watercolor-and-ink-on/a/8224-71271.s?ic2=mytracked-lotspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116#8224-33001

Sold—for a hammer price of $3,600, more with the premium!

Note:  The artwork comes from the estate of Marlene Meyerson of Dallas, also Heritage's headquarters. Her 2017 obituary was in the Dallas Morning News.

Gallerist Julie Saul, whose name is on the subscription label of the framed cover, passed away in 2022. Her obituary was in the New York Times.

 

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