Attempted Bloggery: Eloise

Showing posts with label Eloise. Show all posts

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Hilary Knight: Renata Adler as Eloise

Bookseller Charles Agvent offers an original magazine illustration by Hilary Knight, the illustrator of Kay Thompson's Eloise books. It shows critic Renata Adler, we are told, in the guise of Eloise. We also see a well-dressed man receiving a shoe shine, perhaps at the Plaza Hotel.

Hilary Knight
AbeBooks listing accessed December 8, 2024

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=32067327911&searchurl=attrs%3Dsgnd%26ds%3D30%26kn%3Dnew%2BYorker%26rollup%3Don%26sgnd%3Don%26sortby%3D0&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp0-_-title24

Note: So the question we should all have is: In what magazine, at what date, and in what context did this drawing by Hilary Knight appear in print? I've got nothing, but I'd appreciate hearing from anyone with a bit more than that.

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Monday, December 24, 2018

Ronald Searle: Commercial Christmas

Many of Ronald Searle's Christmas illustrations captured a special luminous joy, but he could also be critical of the holiday's commercialism. Three unpublished illustrations for a circa 1960 Holiday magazine article entitled "Christmas Lifemanship" were apparently owned by Hilary Knight, whose conception of Eloise was somewhat influenced by Searle's devilish St. Trinian's girls. The watercolors were sold off at Bonham's earlier this month. Unfortunately, only one of the three is illustrated in the catalogue.

Ronald Searle
Commercial Christmas
from Christmas Lifemanship
Holiday, unpublished, c. 1960

Ronald Searle
Bonhams, December 5, 2018

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24899/lot/20/

Note: If you haven't seen the Christmas cards that Ronald Searle sent to his friends, you're in for a real treat. They're collected on Perpetua, the Ronald Searle Tribute blog, here. See what I mean by "luminous joy?"

I would love to hear from the buyer of this lot, or from anyone who might have photographed the other two drawings in this suite while they were at Bonhams.