Attempted Bloggery: American Indian

Showing posts with label American Indian. Show all posts

Sunday, June 1, 2025

John Wesley: Geo. Wash. & 3 Indians #1

I know next to nothing of the work of John Wesley, but I am taken with his 1963 ink drawing Geo. Wash. & 3 Indians #1. It is a study for an art catalogue cover. The work was sold on May 31 in Glen Cove by Roland NY.

John Wesley
Roland NY listing accessed May 31, 2025 shortly before the sale

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/206690026_john-wesley-geo-washington-and-3-indians-ink-on-paper/?from=alert&utm_source=LA_SavedAlert&utm_campaign=SearchAlert_20230912_A&utm_medium=email&utm_content=item

Sold!

Note: The finished work may be seen here.

04958

Friday, March 1, 2019

Ronald Searle: A Contented Smoke Signal

A 1950s-era Boxing Day card from Ronald Searle also writing for his wife Kaye Webb (who is "elbow deep in washing up") thanks "Dearest June and Charles" for a set of knives. These knives—are they "super" or "superb?"—must be of the type whose blades fold into the handles as illustrated here on the headdress of an American Indian indulging in a peace pipe and sending, we are told, "A contented smoke signal." Presumably dating from the latter part of 1951-1960, the drawing possibly bears a thematic relationship to Searle's Holiday magazine cover of July 1959. The card was sold on eBay ten years ago for 369.99 GBP ($530).

The eBay seller failed to get the artist's name right in the main title of the listing:

Ronald Searle
eBay Listing Ended February 19, 2009

Thanks to eBay for providing the translation…from British English:

Ronald Searle
eBay Item Description

The Holiday cover, not that you asked:

Ronald Searle
Holiday, June 1959

http://ronaldsearle.blogspot.com/2007/10/

Note: Ronald Searle and Kaye Webb's modernist home at 32 Newton Road is the subject of Perpetua, the Ronald Searle Tribute blog, here.

Images of illustrated letters of this sort from the hand of Searle are just the sort of submissions welcomed here at Attempted Bloggery. Hint, hint.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Ronald Searle

Kaye Webb

Autograph Drawings, Signed

Attempted Bloggery's Contented Content

02850

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Turkey Parade: Arnie Levin New Yorker Cover Art

For a 1977 cover of the New Yorker, Arnie Levin imagines the very first Thanksgiving Day parade. A pair of pilgrims and an American Indian review a procession of turkeys. Sometimes the simplest ideas work best.

Four decades later the concept remains fresh, yet the cover can't be said to have aged well. The problem for us today is the red—really more of a pink—skin tone of the native American in the reviewing stand. This depiction very likely would be objectionable to the New Yorker's contemporary editors and readers. Levin carries the pink over into all the turkey heads, while the feathers pick up the browns from the reviewing stand. These colors tie the composition together, but one imagines Levin would choose differently today.