B. Kliban: CatNoel Cards

Pomegranate's CatNoel holiday card assortment by B. Kliban offers twenty cards priced at $16.95. The boxed set is currently out of stock, but there's always next year.

https://www.pomegranate.com/products/b-kliban-catnoel-holiday-card-assortment

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Arthur Getz and the WPA

Three of New Yorker cover artist Arthur Getz's early post office murals for the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration are documented in an archive sold this month at Swann Auction Galleries. In addition to copies of the contracts, there are photographs of the highly finished preliminary sketches created for the project. Unfortunately, only one of these photos is reproduced in the online sale catalogue. I have taken the liberty of pairing it with the completed mural.

Cotton Field (1942)
Luverne, Alabama
Artuhr Getz

https://www.reddit.com/r/Socialistart/comments/kd1w50/cotton_field_arthur_getz_1942_luverne_alabama/

Arthur Getz
Swann Galleries February 4, 2021

https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/Lots/auction-lot/ARTHUR-GETZ-(1913-1998)-Archive-of-contracts-and-photographs?saleno=2557&lotNo=39&refNo=777638

Here are the other two completed post office murals:

Early Commerce in the Erie Canal Region (1940)
Lancaster, New York
Arthur Getz

https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/post-office-mural-bronson-mi/

Harvest (1943)
Bronson, Missouri
Arthur Getz

https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/post-office-mural-bronson-mi/

Visiting all three would make for quite a road trip!

Another lot in the auction has a so-called WPA practice piece dating from 1938. The subject matter seems a bit too calamitous for a post office. This piece might be influenced by the work of Thomas Hart Benton.

Arthur Getz
Swann Galleries February 4, 2021

https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/Lots/auction-lot/ARTHUR-GETZ-(1913-1998)-Untitled-(WPA-Practice-Piece)?saleno=2557&lotNo=181&refNo=778367

Arthur Getz
Prices with Buyer's Premium

Note:  Got original work by Arthur Getz? Sure, I'd love to post it.

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James Thurber: Off the Wall

Back around 1935, James Thurber created murals on the wall of Costello's Bar, a former speakeasy, as payment for an outstanding bar tab. Come January of 1940, Thurber—celebrated writer, playwright, cartoonist, and prolific doodler—no longer had the time for such things. This he wrote in a letter on New Yorker stationery to one Mrs. Bradley. The letter, which will be sold at Swann Galleries next week, conveyed disappointing news: "...I'm afraid I'll have no time for further wall drawings..."

Happily, Thurber wall drawings are preserved under glass at the New Yorker's current offices. The murals at Costello's were restored in 1972 by a team of artists, but they disappeared mysteriously in the early 1990s.

James Thurber
TLS, January 24, 1940

James Thurber
Swann Galleries
Sale 2492 Autographs
Lot 352
November 8, 2018

https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/asp/fullCatalogue.asp?salelot=2492+++++352+&refno=++743161&saletype=

November 8, 2018 Update:  Sold!

Hammer Price $250

Note:  This blog is sorely lacking in murals by James Thurber. Just sayin'. Anyone with knowledge of the whereabouts of the missing murals from Costello's should get in touch.

Ink Spill has documented Thurber's wall drawings at the New Yorker's One World Trade Center office here.

Peter Arno did some work painting murals, but none are known to survive. If you believe otherwise, step forward.

The intriguing story of the missing Café Society mural by Syd Hoff may be found here.

Not all cartoonists' murals are missing. Paul Karasik writes about the Charles Addams mural now at Penn State here.


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

James Thurber

Murals

Typed Letters, Signed

Attempted Bloggery's Wallflower of an Index

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Edward Sorel's Larger-Than-Life Peter Arno Mural

Edward Sorel's mural completed in 2009 for New York's Monkey Bar features luminaries of the 1920's and 1930's. In one of the sections, Peter Arno is shown at the lower left looking angular in pinstripes. He is holding three brushes—as he appears in several photos—and is working on a picture of a woman hastily clutching a towel. Artists have to make many decisions in producing any work, and here Mr. Sorel has chosen a very specific image for Arno's drawing board. In fact, the image of the woman appears in photos of Arno prominently published in Sizzling Platter (1949) and in The New Peter Arno Pocket Book (1955). In these photos, the drawing is a very large wall drawing on which Arno is working standing upon a ladder. In short, there is a clever inside joke here. Sorel's mural depiction of Peter Arno shows Arno working out his own mural!

A section of Edward Sorel's Monkey Bar mural completed in 2009 featuring Jazz Age caricatures of Langston Hughes, Kate Smith, Frank Sinatra, a Ziegfeld Girl, Peter Arno, "Fats" Waller, Ella Fitzgerald, and Clifford Odets.

http://monkeybarnewyork.com/mural.html#

The New Peter Arno Pocket Book (1955)

http://www.pbase.com/csw62/image/59979488

Another press photograph from this shoot was misdated 1951 at the time of Arno's death in 1968.

Press photograph posted by owner Rarebit Fiend on the Comic Art Fans site after being purchased from the Historic Images outlet.

Image updated November 20, 2016

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=485573

The image published in the 1949 book Sizzling Platter demonstrates why the above photograph must be from at least two years before 1951.

From Peter Arno's Sizzling Platter (1949)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Peter-Arnos-SIZZLING-PLATTER-classic-CARTOON-Arno-artwork-vtg-HC-BOOK-1949-/272193591767?hash=item3f600099d7:g:6roAAOSwoudW8FnM

Note:  Consult the blog archives for more on Edward Sorel and Peter Arno.

Edward Sorel will join Michael Maslin on April 18 at Columbia University's Butler Library in conversation about Peter Arno:

https://blogs.cul.columbia.edu/butler/2016/02/18/events-two-pieces-of-comics-history-march-7-april-18/

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Saul Steinberg's Mural of Cincinnati

Saul Steinberg's Mural of Cincinnati was created in New York in 1947 and installed in the Skyline Dining Room of the Terrace Plaza Hotel the following year. The mural was removed in 1965 when the hotel was sold. It was donated to the Cincinnati Art Museum. A period linen postcard shows the mural as it appeared in situ. These postcards remain available on eBay and elsewhere from time to time.

Postcard of the Skyline Dining Room with the Steinberg Mural of Cincinnati
Terrace Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati, Ohio

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Linen-Postcard-Skyline-Dining-Room-in-Cincinnati-Ohio-95385-/361164951405?pt=Postcards_US&hash=item54171bcf6d&nma=true&si=Zv4PhLp6HocGRC23iqci2JeQ2LI%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Back of a different example of the postcard

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Postcard-Skyline-Dining-Room-Terrace-Plaza-Hotel-Cincinnati-Ohio-OH-/221683185443?pt=Postcards_US&hash=item339d58f723&nma=true&si=Zv4PhLp6HocGRC23iqci2JeQ2LI%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Recent eBay sales of this postcard:

A view from the other side of the Skyline Dining Room shows scant details of the mural:

The Skyline Dining Room

http://csales-mylifestory.blogspot.com/2012/03/terrace-plaza-hotel-cincinnatti.html

I have collected a few photographs of sections of the Mural of Cincinnati from various internet sources. As you can see, the mural is in color. The long, curving line represents the Ohio River. Here two ventilator grills can be seen in the mural. 

Saul Steinberg, Mural of Cincinnati

http://www.soapboxmedia.com/features/01006terracehotel.aspx

Note that the ventilator hole in the mural to the left of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge here has been patched.

Saul Steinberg, Mural of Cincinnati, detail of the mural

http://austinkleon.com/2007/06/19/saul-steinbergs-cincinnati-mural/

Mural of Cincinnati. These two panels follow the detail above further to the right
Photograph by Saul Steinberg

http://arts.gov/article/preserving-nations-cultural-legacy-federal-save-americas-treasures-program

These Cincinnati landmarks may be spotted in the mural:

The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, 1866
Cincennati, Ohio

http://www.roeblingbridge.org/history/

The Tyler Davidson Fountain, 1871
Cincinnati, Ohio

http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Cincinnati

Note:  Many thanks to David from Manhattan for educating me on Steinberg and inspiring this post and others.

While you're here you might want to sample further blog posts about Saul Steinberg.

Saul Steinberg also designed a mural for the American Pavilion at the 1958 Brussells World's Fair.

But where on earth is Syd Hoff's Café Society mural?

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