Showing posts with label Addams and Evil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Addams and Evil. Show all posts

Saturday, February 14, 2026

Blog Post No. 5200: A Charles Addams Movie Theater Scream

Original Charles Addams art published in The New Yorker issue of February 8, 1947 shows a theater full of moviegoers and their shared reaction to a big screen scream.

Charles Addams
Original art
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27


Seventy years after publication, the artwork to this classic cartoon was sold at Swann Auction Galleries in the Illustration Art sale:
Charles Addams
Swann Galleries listing of December 14, 2017
Swann, it will be noted, did not provide the publication date in The New Yorker, or even the year. They did document the drawing's appearances in three Addams collections, but the 1947 book is correctly titled Addams and Evil.

Charles Addams
Swann Galleries item description

With such a classic original selling for $31,200 (including the 30% buyer's premium), well above the 2017 presale estimate of $12,000 to $18,000, one might wonder what an Addams rough drawing of the same subject might be worth in today's market. Well, thanks to Swann Galleries's recent Illustration Art sale, we actually can provide the answer. An unusually detailed pencil study from a Vermont collection went up on the auction block in December of 2025. Perhaps the owners were aware that Swann had sold the original finished drawing eight years earlier.

Charles Addams
Preliminary art
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27

Charles Addams
Swann Galleries listing of December 4, 2025

Despite the above, the correct date of publication in The New Yorker is February 8, 1947, as I've already indicated.


Note that in the intervening years, Swann's top buyer's premium has come down from 30% to 27%. There's something to be said for competition. Still, $9,525 with said premium is a remarkable price for a New Yorker rough. Indeed, many Addams New Yorker originals in this blog's archives have sold for less than that. Today, though, Addams's work continues to appreciate and that seems to be carrying over even to the roughs.


Here's the relevant page from Addams and Evil (1947):

https://dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/HumorMagazines/Addams%20And%20Evil%20(1947).pdf



And here's a grouping showing how the drawing appeared in rough form, in the original art, and finally in the pages of The New Yorker:
Charles Addams
Preliminary art
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27

Charles Addams
Original art
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27

Charles Addams
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27

With a spot drawing by Morris Neuwirth and a cartoon by Charles Addams


* * *

I have a fair degree of confidence that the spot artist on the page opposite the Addams drawing is Morris Neuwirth (1912-1985) and that the toll lanes depicted here relate to something built by Robert Moses.  Some of Neuwirth's work is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Stop Pay Toll
Morris Neuwirth
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 26



The Attempted Bloggery Centennial Posts 💯
Blog Post No. 100
Blog Post No. 200:  A Shaggy Dog Story




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Sunday, January 1, 2023

Gregory Sofsky's Copy of Addams and Evil by Charles Addams

Gregory Sofsky was born around 1938 in Pennsylvania, according to Ancestry.com. A copy of Addams and Evil (1947) was personalized for him by cartoonist Charles Addams in 1967 with a drawing of the Addams Family's Wednesday. That volume is now on the market, offered for sale by Mausoleum Books—you can't make this up—of Glendale, for $2,750. 




Charles Addams
AbeBooks listing accessed December 31, 2022




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Saturday, December 10, 2022

Mary Lou's Copy of Addams and Evil by Charles Addams

Mary Low's copy of Addams and Evil (1947) was personalized for her a decade after publication by cartoonist Charles Addams. He included an original drawing of the Addams Family member we know today as Uncle Fester. He is mostly hidden behind a block of text, but what is revealed is worthy of note.


"For Mary Low
with best wishes
Chas Addams
New York           
1957"             



The dust jacket is a facsimile. The books is offered by Arundel Books of Seattle at $2,750.
Charles Addams
AbeBooks listing accessed December 9, 2022



Note:  Images of original book sketches by Charles Addams, such as this one of Uncle Fester, are welcome here on Attempted Bloggery. There's already quite a fetching assortment in the archives.



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Friday, April 23, 2021

Charles Addams: Chasing the Addams Family Tree

On April 9, Heritage Auctions opened online bidding for its April 30 illustration art auction. The sale features an original published Addams Family cartoon by Charles Addams that purportedly has a New Yorker stamp on the verso and was published in Addams and Evil (1947) as well as in The World of Charles Addams (1991). The drawing shows the "witch lady" we now know as Morticia Addams trimming her Christmas tree with ghoulish decorations while her children—today familiar as Wednesday and Pugsley—look on. Addams began to introduce his family of macabre characters in The New Yorker in 1938, but they were not given names until "The Addams Family" television show appeared in 1964.


Heritage imaged the drawing in the frame, apparently, so there is no photograph to verify that it is indeed "inscribed with The New Yorker stamp on the reverse." Even the description here is unhelpful.






This original artwork was given a presale estimate of $8,000-12,000 which seemed to me a little on the low side for an Addams Family original from The New Yorker. I thought such a piece could conceivably go for much more: the sky is the proverbial limit. In standard live auctions, the lot goes to the highest bidder, usually the last bidder. There was no way I was going to chase this drawing up into the stratosphere, but it occurred to me I could still be an early high bidder and briefly experience the thrill. Well, why not?

 
Bidding opened at $4,000 and one bid was already placed before I arrived on the scene. I decided to leave an absentee bid of $5,000 ($6250 with the buyer's premium) which I fully understood would be unsuccessful. If I somehow beat the odds and won the bidding, I would be delighted to have it for this price. If I were outbid, as I expected to be, I would still have the memory of being the temporary high bidder.
Charles Addams
Heritage Auctions
April 9, 2021





After holding the high bid for nearly three hours and twenty minutes, I was outbid—with twenty days, 16 hours, and 32 minutes still  remaining before the live auction.
Charles Addams
Heritage Auctions
April 9, 2021


Since April 9, the high bid has risen to $8,250 ($10,312.50 with the premium). In other words, the low estimate already has been met with more than a week to go before the auction goes live. The sky is still the limit.
Charles Addams
Heritage Auction listing accessed April 22, 2021



Whatever New Yorker stamp may or may not be on the back of the art, this drawing did not actually appear in The New Yorker. I researched this only after my brief reign as high bidder came to an untimely end. Perhaps the artwork was held in the New Yorker's bank and killed or simply released when Addams wished to use it in Addams and Evil.



May 1, 2021 Update:  Sold yesterday for $87,500! That's a winning bid of $70,000 plus the $17,500 buyer's premium.



April 26, 2023 Update:  The drawing was also reprinted in Addams's My Crowd (1970) on page 134.



Note:  Thanks to Michael Maslin for verifying that this cartoon was not published in The New Yorker. You can't be too careful, you know.



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Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Audrena's Copy of Addams and Evil

In 1958, Charles Addams drew one of his many standing figures of Wednesday Addams in an inscribed copy of his 1947 cartoon collection Addams and Evil (New York:  Simon and Schuster). Here it's the thirteenth printing (!) of the book and the drawing is signed in New York and dated. The inscription is formulated a little unusually:  "To Audrena for Bob Guy." So whose book was this exactly? One wonders if this Bob Guy is the actor and writer who was later to be behind the TV series "Jeepers Creepers Theater" in 1962-1963. It seems plausible enough.

 Happy Wednesday!














Charles Addams
AbeBooks Listing Retrieved September 30, 2018
Note:  The five larger photographs are from the AbeBooks listing, while the eight smaller photos are from the bookseller's own website, making a total again of thirteen photos of this thirteenth printing! I'm sure it's all just a happy coincidence.

 That spaceship cartoon on the back of the dust cover is a famous one indeed. I wrote about it last year here.

 Wednesday Addams had appeared in Addams Family New Yorker cartoons since 1938, but she didn't receive her name until "The Addams Family" television series in 1964. At the time this drawing was made, she was nameless.

 Readers with books like this one with original Charles Addams drawings are encouraged to share them here on the blog.
Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Charles Addams

Wednesday Addams

The Addams Family

Signed Books with Original Drawings

Attempted Bloggery's Mid-Week Index

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Monday, December 14, 2015

Lurch as Santa: Daise Terry's Copy of Addams and Evil

New Yorker office manager Daise Terry's advocacy for the young Charles Addams is documented in Ben Yagoda's About Town:  The New Yorker and the World it Made (2000). This year her copy of Addams and Evil (1947) with a full page original watercolor of the Addams Family's Lurch as Santa Claus was auctioned by PBA Galleries for $1,200. John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller subsequently sold it at a tidy profit for $3,750. The watercolor shows Lurch in Santa's garb holding almost the identical pose he has on the book's dust jacket. One assumes that this is as jolly as he gets.

Yagoda, Ben. About Town:  The New Yorker and the World it Made, Simon and Schuster, 2000, p. 119.
About Town by Ben Yagoda


Charles Addams, Lurch as Santa Claus, inscribed "New York/1947/For Daise Terry/Merry Christmas/Chas Addams" in Addams, Charles. Addams and Evil, New York:  Random House, 1947





PBA Galleries June 25, 2015


John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller Listing
Sold


John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller Listing
Sold


Note:  Charles Addams, got him covered.

Books with original drawings, got them covered.

Christmas, got it covered.

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