Ecosystem: Ivan Brunetti Preliminary and Final New Yorker Cover Art

So this is office life? Ivan Brunetti's original cover art for The New Yorker of March 2, 2009 was sold yesterday at Heritage Auctions along with his rough. The magazine published the cover with the title "Ecosystem." As big a word as it is, I don't think it adds anything. The original art is black and white; color was added digitally.

Ivan Brunetti
Heritage Auctions sale of September 15, 2023

https://comics.ha.com/itm/original-comic-art/covers/ivan-brunetti-the-new-yorker-3-2-2009-ecosystem-cover-original-art-and-preliminary-art-new-yorker-/a/7341-93119.s?ic2=mytracked-lotspage-lotlinks-12202013&tab=MyTrackedLots-101116

Ivan Brunetti
Heritage Auctions item description

Four bidders had already placed bids eighteen days prior to the sale.

 Bidding as of August 28, 2023, eighteen days before the auction

Bidding at the close of the auction on September 15, 2023

The rough isn't all that different from the final version.

"Ecosystem"
Ivan Brunetti
The New Yorker, March 2, 2009

Four bidders had already placed bids eighteen days prior to the sale.

 Bidding as of August 28, 2023, eighteen days before the auction

Bidding at the close of the auction on September 15, 2023

04445

Natural Selection: Chris Ware Preliminary New Yorker Cover Art

For its eighty-fifth anniversary double issue of February 15 and 22, 2010, The New Yorker published not the classic Eustace Tilley image but four different new covers. The idea was that this quartet of covers—by Chris Ware, Adrian Tomine, Dan Clowes, and Ivan Brunetti—when arranged in a certain rectangle, would form a graphic tribute of sorts to the classic Rea Irvin cover of the magazine's very first issue, the one that used to be run annually until the magazine's editors thought they could do better. The four covers might sound like a neat idea, almost, until you actually look at them next to that first New Yorker cover and try to make sense of the hodgepodge.

Rea Irvin
The New Yorker, February 21, 1925

https://mookseandgripes.com/reviews/2010/02/09/claire-keegan-foster/

Chris Ware's cover (at the top left), entitled "Natural Selection," depicts Irvin (looking a bit like W. C. Fields) in his studio trying to decide what bug or other creature to place on the far side of Tilley's monocle. We are made witness to the precise moment when inspiration strikes him.

Ware's preliminary—very preliminary?—sketch for this cover was auctioned at Sotheby's Paris in the Bande Dessinée sale of 2016. The jaw-dropping presale estimate of 15,000 to 18,000 Euros was justified, some might say, when the work sold for the hammer price of 16,250.

Chris Ware
Sotheby's Paris
Bande Dessinée, May 14, 2016, lot 255

https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/bande-dessinee-pf1655/lot.255.html

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2010-02-15/flipbook/CV1/

Detail of the prop top hat and coat:

Realized price:

The other 2010 covers:

"Adaptation"
Adrian Tomine

https://www.comicsbeat.com/new-yorker-anniversary-edition-showcases-cartoon-jam/

"Survival of the Fittest"
Dan Clowes

https://www.comicsbeat.com/new-yorker-anniversary-edition-showcases-cartoon-jam/

"Biodiversity"

Ivan Brunetti

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2010-02-15/flipbook/CV2/

04231

Ivan Brunetti: A Self-Portrait Sketch

A signed sketch card by Ivan Brunetti depicts the bearded artist wearing a red plaid shirt. The Chicago artist has chosen to show himself walking in a city, smiling.

Ivan Brunetti
eBay listing ended September 11, 2022

https://www.ebay.com/itm/374240716485?hash=item57227c26c5%3Ag%3AZhUAAOSwUTNjDl6l&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoKAgrRwXU07WgoeZZvSbgPy43qn2NCe2XsI8ENG%2FYtyc8T3l8dmLhWQqTfSL3gG1IUe4g5vh0l%2F3FnpdQvs3uxrCSOBEhc4X5TenN%2F9P4plYd99yjVHG5hLDezL36mGZKjbYlGhydKqfsoDthYYCFh%2FMuBMIpDaYHae4uiZGbijkTPfKrAnSEiRvKHugFxUbvM%2B2roWRz9kpQfYj3qW6YS4%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR-iEppD0YA&nma=true&si=64J6TuENCQvl%252FEQuIbsoMEcDQlw%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Ivan Brunetti
eBay item description

Ivan Brunetti
eBay bid history
Two bidders face off within thirteen seconds of each other.

04098

Ivan Brunetti: When Things Were Better

Last year, Ivan Brunetti sold his original comic strip artwork for the New Yorker on eBay. The artwork was altered in Photoshop prior to publication. The proceeds from the sale were put toward the printing of volume 4 of the Linework Anthology, a comics and graphics publication which came out in 2013.

Ivan Brunetti, "Things Were Better When They Were Worse,"
Original artwork for the New Yorker, December 21, 2009, page 107

EBay auction ending April 23, 2013

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ivan-Brunetti-Original-Art-for-New-Yorker-Comic-Strip-/121096219238?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c31e5aa66

Ivan Brunetti, "Sketchbook"
The New Yorker, December 21, 2009, page 107

Linework Volume 4

01093