Charles Addams: The Royal Canadian Mountie Gets His Man?

Collectors of original art by Charles Addams were presented with an unusual opportunity at Doyle New York yesterday. A drawing of his is set at a picnic in the Canadian mountains. A Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman comes by with an apprehended prisoner. The publication history of the drawing was initially unknown to the auction house, but that was corrected prior to the sale. The drawing illustrated "The Royal Canadian Mounted: The magnificent story of one of the great police forces on earth" by James Warner Bellah in Holiday magazine for June 1958. It was collected in Black Maria, Addams's 1960 collection. So it's technically a story illustration, but in style it's more of a typical Addams cartoon.

Charles Addams
Holiday, June 1958, p. 76
Black Maria, 1960, p. 28

There is a condition issue. As Doyle describes it, "The sheet with a hard central fold that has cracked the backing of the illustration board, although the surface paper with the drawing is merely creased. Corners a bit bumped." This drawing is in need of a paper conservator.

The drawing is from the estate of Harry Lowe (1922-2021, the art professor and Smithsonian curator). The auction house estimate was $1,000 to $1,500, set before the publication history was known. It's on the conservative side, but not unreasonable given the condition issues.

The revised listing, accessed November 6, now has the publication history provided by H. Kevin Miserocchi of the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation:

An eBay listing shows the 1958 Addams illustration in Holiday and the first page of the accompanying article.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/235039994169

Charles Addams's Black Maria (1960) with a spread of drawings without words, from another eBay listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/364223758221

Sold!

Note:  My thanks to Charles Addams memorabilia expert Joel Jacobus for his guidance.

If the purchaser of this drawing chooses to restore it, I would be happy to post an image of the refreshed art afterwards.

Collectors of original Addams art are welcome to submit images of their holdings to this blog. 

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Clown Feet: Charles Addams and Ronald Searle

How often does it happen that two top cartoonists come up with virtually the same idea? Actually, it's not all that rare, and often it does not involve intentional or even inadvertent copying. Charles Addams (1912-1988) and Ronald Searle (1920-2011) were two of the leading cartoonists of the twentieth century. It happens that at some point they each pursued the idea of a tired clown taking off his shoes at the end of the day and they both arrived at a strikingly similar place. Addams's version exists as a rough, probably submitted to The New Yorker, and published posthumously as a postcard by the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation; Searle's is a finished drawing with watercolor collected in his 1978 eponymous monograph. Searle's cartoon was created for the XIVth Circus Gala, Paris, 1971, and it was in the collection of his wife Monica Searle. The date of Addams's is presumably unknown to the Addams Foundation, but it doesn't particularly matter which came first. The artists were separated by an ocean and were probably unaware of each other's clown pictures. The drawings are here presented in alphabetical order by cartoonist.

Clown Feet
Charles Addams
The Tee and Charles Addams Foundation

https://www.ebay.com/itm/402724192642?hash=item5dc43b8182:g:vKsAAOSw4NFgPmaK&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4Jn%2B

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Clown, 1971
Ronald Searle
XIVth Circus Gala, Paris, 1971
Ronald Searle: exposition, Cabinet des estampes, Bibliothèque nationale, 26 janvier-31 mars 1973, Paris, catalogue no. 99
Ronald Searle, Mayflower Books, New York, 1978, no. 92

https://bado-badosblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-hall-of-fame-2-searle.html

First off, Addams gets a lot of points for subtlety. Just hinting at the size of the clown's feet, rather than showing them to us outright, is ingenious. Searle, as is his wont, gives us a lot of extraordinary detail that is ultimately extraneous to the main point of the drawing. We're shown the clown's newspaper, Le Monde (this was created for a Paris Circus Gala), his ash tray full of spent cigarettes, and his liquor. We even get to see his street clothes and his umbrella. And what a wonderful water pitcher Searle has given us! The details are very specific.

So, which do you prefer?

August 16, 2023 Update:  Postcard sold!

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