Ed Arno: Nursing St. Bernards

A decade ago, eBay hosted Live Auctions. One could bid on individual lots from many of the smaller auction houses through the eBay platform. Apparently, the margins were too small to make it worth eBay's while, and the online service shut down Live Auctions giving only short notice. Today, this market is largely divided between Invaluable and Live Auctioneers.

A 1969 cartoon original by Ed Arno was sold by National Book Auctions late in 2016.

The subject was nursing St. Bernards—one could almost imagine the gag from those three words. It had been published in The New York Times.

Ed Arno's signature

Copyright notice

Ed Arno
eBay listing ended October 8, 2016

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Ink-Drawing-ED-ARNO-Signed-Framed-New-Yorker-New-York-Times-Lot-8114-/201683868328?hash=item2ef54b9

aa8%3Ag%3AVfAAAOSwLnBX8wyl&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Ed Arno
eBay item description

Ed Arno
eBay bid history
The lone bidder must bid against the auction house's reserve.

Note:  A little Ed Arno art serves to warm up one's insides. Readers are encouraged to submit examples to this blog.

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Sergio Aragonés: An Adolph S. Ochs First Day Cover

Adolph S. Ochs was the publisher of The New York Times from 1896 to 1935, a career which earned him a U.S. commemorative stamp issue in 1976. Mad magazine cartoonist Sergio Aragonés, asked to embellish a first day cover, showed that he too knows a bit about publishers.

Sergio Aragonés
eBay listing accessed March 12, 2023

https://www.ebay.com/itm/285052289453?

Sergio Aragonés
eBay item description

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Peter Arno for Penn Maryland Whiskey

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was a popular 1925 novel by Anita Loos that inspired a 1928 silent film of the same name (and a Technicolor musical in 1953 starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe). Aware of this cultural touchstone, the Penn-Maryland Corporation registered the trademark "Gentlemen Prefer Blends" in 1935 for use in its blended whiskey advertising. Cartoonist Peter Arno contributed a humorous drawing to the campaign, which appeared in The New Yorker, in The New York Times, and on a promotional matchbook cover. The matchbook bears the additional slogan, "Mellow as a Cello."

Penn Maryland Whiskey
Peter Arno
The New Yorker, February 9, 1935, page 59

The New York Times, February 20, 1935, page 13

https://www.nytimes.com/1935/02/20/archives/exconvict-is-parted-from-pet-squirrels-arrest-on-new-narcotic.html

Peter Arno
Penn Maryland Blended Whiskey
eBay listing accessed February 4, 2022

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294168855969

Peter Arno
Penn Maryland Blended Whiskey
eBay item description

Spot drawing by unidentified artist and advertisement by Peter Arno

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1935-01-19/flipbook/058/

April 17, 2022 Update:  That phrase "Mellow as a cello" did not only appear on this matchbook. A 1935 ad for Penn Maryland Whiskey without any Arno content features the words front and center in its copy:

Penn Maryland Whiskey ad
The Daily News, February 8, 1935

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/417526290/

While the phrase may have been in general circulation, it was not common enough to appear on the Google Books Ngram Viewer. Did a competitor steal it? A later 1944 ad for Old Melody liqueurs by M. S. Walker, Inc., of Boston, makes use of the same musical rhyme:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133154079932?nma=true...

Note:  I can't make out the signature on the New Yorker spot drawing, but I would appreciate hearing from anyone who perhaps can.

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Ronald Searle: Royalty Reading the Times

In the mid-1980s, readers of the Sunday Times Magazine section were treated to a delightful full-page color ad campaign illustrated by Ronald Searle. With the recurring slogan  "There's no Times like the present," a page from June 1986 features royalty reading the Times and the single adjective "Peerless." Indeed.

Ronald Searle
There's no Times like the present.
Peerless
The New York Times Magazine, June 22, 1986

Searle chooses not to include the rear chair legs on the ornate royal throne, probably because they might be distracting or confusing in this head-on view. He is clearly not afraid of ornament, but Searle does nevertheless strive for clarity.

Ronald Searle
eBay listing accessed November 8, 2021

https://www.ebay.com/itm/373775072303?hash=item5706bafc2f:g:4voAAOSwaY1hfkjN

Ronald Searle
eBay item description

March 25, 2023 Update:  Sold!

Note:  The page described as Gripping from this ad campaign by Ronald Searle may be seen here. (It's about tennis, remember?) Another hilarious page, Elevating, was published in the Times Magazine on February 2, 1987. It also appears on page 92 of Ronald Searle's America (2016), compiled by Matt Jones. Has it already been five years?

These selfsame pages may also be seen on Perpetua, the Ronald Searle Tribute blog, which is also the brainchild of Matt Jones. The post is called "Advertising Part 2" and today's king will no doubt eventually find his way there. Just scroll down to the end.

There's more. My archived Attempted Bloggery post here shows Searle's original watercolor art for two unpublished Times ads.

There are definitely other published Searle ads for the New York Times in glorious color. If you have any of these, please forward scans or photos. Sometime's it's hard to fathom the extent of the Times's efforts to advertise the paper to its own readers.

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Charles Saxon 9 X for The New York Times

In 1961, a portfolio of nine cartoons by New Yorker cartoonist Charles Saxon was given to booksellers as a promotion for the New York Times Book Review. The photos, taken by an eBay seller, don't show all the cartoons and crop out parts of some captions, but they're still worth a look.

9 X Saxon

"Mrs. Hartung asks that questions be restricted to
non-recent books. She wishes to avoid saying anything
that might adversely affect any work in current release."

"Mrs. Hartung asks that questions be restricted to
non-recent books. She wishes to avoid saying anything
that might adversely affect any work in current release."

"This isn't one of those non-books, is it?"

"All I know about her is that I keep seeing in
acknowledgments that she helps make books possible."

"I wonder if you could suggest something to wean me
away from Jack Paar."

"This just kills me. A note to myself to read
'To The Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf, and I
can't remember why!"

"This isn't one of those non-books, is it?"

Charles Saxon
eBay listing ended July 8, 2021

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184916537998?hash=item2b0de2728e%3Ag%3AQyAAAOSwt8Bg3nDn&nma=true&si=64J6TuENCQvl%252FEQuIbsoMEcDQlw%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Charles Saxon
eBay item Description

03702

Harold Ross and Jane Grant Wed

One hundred one years ago today New York Times reporter Jane Grant and American Legion Weekly editor-in-chief Harold Ross were married. The Times dutifully covered the nuptials of its first full-fledged female reporter after the announcement was made on April 12. Ross was then known for his work during the Great War on Stars and Stripes, which he had been assigned to from its founding, eventually becoming managing editor. In France, Alexander Woollcott had introduced the couple.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/20625904/?terms=%22Harold%2BW.%2BRoss%22

Together Ross and Grant would go on to establish The New Yorker in 1925 with the financial backing of Raoul Fleischmann. Ross, of course, served as the magazine's editor while Grant worked at bringing investors and talent, notably Janet Flanner, on board. The magazine became a success but the marriage did not. The couple were divorced in 1929. Grant would publish her memoir Ross, The New Yorker and Me in 1968.

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