Showing posts with label The World of Charles Addams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The World of Charles Addams. Show all posts

Saturday, February 14, 2026

Blog Post No. 5200: A Charles Addams Movie Theater Scream

Original Charles Addams art published in The New Yorker issue of February 8, 1947 shows a theater full of moviegoers and their shared reaction to a big screen scream.

Charles Addams
Original art
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27


Seventy years after publication, the artwork to this classic cartoon was sold at Swann Auction Galleries in the Illustration Art sale:
Charles Addams
Swann Galleries listing of December 14, 2017
Swann, it will be noted, did not provide the publication date in The New Yorker, or even the year. They did document the drawing's appearances in three Addams collections, but the 1947 book is correctly titled Addams and Evil.

Charles Addams
Swann Galleries item description

With such a classic original selling for $31,200 (including the 30% buyer's premium), well above the 2017 presale estimate of $12,000 to $18,000, one might wonder what an Addams rough drawing of the same subject might be worth in today's market. Well, thanks to Swann Galleries's recent Illustration Art sale, we actually can provide the answer. An unusually detailed pencil study from a Vermont collection went up on the auction block in December of 2025. Perhaps the owners were aware that Swann had sold the original finished drawing eight years earlier.

Charles Addams
Preliminary art
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27

Charles Addams
Swann Galleries listing of December 4, 2025

Despite the above, the correct date of publication in The New Yorker is February 8, 1947, as I've already indicated.


Note that in the intervening years, Swann's top buyer's premium has come down from 30% to 27%. There's something to be said for competition. Still, $9,525 with said premium is a remarkable price for a New Yorker rough. Indeed, many Addams New Yorker originals in this blog's archives have sold for less than that. Today, though, Addams's work continues to appreciate and that seems to be carrying over even to the roughs.


Here's the relevant page from Addams and Evil (1947):

https://dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/HumorMagazines/Addams%20And%20Evil%20(1947).pdf



And here's a grouping showing how the drawing appeared in rough form, in the original art, and finally in the pages of The New Yorker:
Charles Addams
Preliminary art
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27

Charles Addams
Original art
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27

Charles Addams
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 27

With a spot drawing by Morris Neuwirth and a cartoon by Charles Addams


* * *

I have a fair degree of confidence that the spot artist on the page opposite the Addams drawing is Morris Neuwirth (1912-1985) and that the toll lanes depicted here relate to something built by Robert Moses.  Some of Neuwirth's work is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Stop Pay Toll
Morris Neuwirth
The New Yorker, February 8, 1947, p. 26



The Attempted Bloggery Centennial Posts 💯
Blog Post No. 100
Blog Post No. 200:  A Shaggy Dog Story




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Thursday, October 27, 2011

Morticia Addams

Off the market for four years, this original 1946 drawing of Morticia with a pet alligator was inscribed by Charles Addams to Jim Logan. It sold this past weekend for $3,107, up a bit from its 2007 price of $2,629. Both sales were at Heritage Auctions. The sheet was taken by the recipient, animator and cartoonist Jim Logan, and glued into a book published 50 years after the drawing was made. Some things I will never understand.

Back in 2007, you could bid at Heritage Auctions and many other auction houses through your eBay account. It was a great convenience and partially relieved you, the buyer, from having to register separately at every auction house that had an item you wanted, although often you still had to qualify to bid, which was nearly the same thing. You first would agree that eBay could share its information on your account with the auction house, and the auction house would determine whether you had to jump through any further hoops. The 2007 buyer for this lot bid through eBay, something that is no longer possible. EBay walked away from it's Live Auctions platform at the end of 2008, a business move that I still shake my head at. I'm not even sure why they did this, although I believe coordinating the Live Auctions platform with various live auctions around the globe must have been a daunting challenge.



CHARLES ADDAMS (American 1912 - 1988)
Morticia Addams, 1946, original cartoon illustration
Ink on paper
7-1/2 x 6in.
Signed lower right
Inscription: "For Jim Logan, G. I., with best wishes"


Sold for:$2,629.00 (includes BP )


Bid Source: Live: eBay

Auction Ended On:Dec 12, 2007

Sold for:$3,107.00 (includes BP )


Bid Source: HA.com/Live
Auction Ended On:Oct 22, 2011
Item Activity:7 Internet/mail/phone bidders
360 page views
Animator and cartoonist Jim Logan later glued this early illustration of Morticia Addams to the inside front board of the hard cover book, The World of Chas Addams, Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.

Provenance: From the Jim Logan Collection

Addams, Charles Samuel:. American cartoonist, 1912-1988
Condition Report*:
The illustration has been glued to the inside board of a book; otherwise, it is in Excellent condition.

Note:  Don't miss Wednesday's Addams post about Wednesday here.




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