Ronald Searle: A Beefeater Is Served

In a 1996 Ronald Searle ink and watercolor drawing, we see a beefeater in a restaurant being served dinner by a bull. The meal is not very filling and not very beefy and he is not very happy. A pencil notation on the front of the artwork indicate that it is one of two drawings made for a Town and Country article on London restaurants. It was sold last month at Heritage Auctions in the  Illustration Art sale.

Searle's art is always better viewed full size:

On the back of the original is an unfinished ink drawing over pencil that was never erased. It depicts a well-to-do man in period attire being attacked by hungry books with cartoon eyeballs and sharp teeth. It's intriguing but what is it?

The bidding was strong some sixteen hours before the sale, with a solid $3,100 bid ($3,875 with the premium).

Ronald Searle
Heritage Auctions listing accessed sixteen hours before the sale

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/pulp-pulp-like-digests-and-paperback-art/ronald-william-fordham-searle-british-1920-2011-beefeater-1996-watercolor-and-ink-on-paper-14-3-4-x-14-1-4-inches/a/8224-71268.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

Ronald Searle
Heritage Auctions item description

But the price was to go still higher in the illustration art sale during the live bidding:

December 28, 2025 Update:  These two drawings share some details of costume but are otherwise almost certainly unrelated save for the presence of books and Searle's exaggerated style. It strains credulity to suggest that a rough variant for a 1989 book illustration would be on the back of a 1996 finished drawing.

Numerous critical marginal notes in a contemporary hand
Ronald Searle
Slightly Foxed—but Still Desirable: Ronald Searle's Wicked World of Book Collecting (Souvenir Press, 1989)

https://simanaitissays.com/2013/01/31/ronald-searle/

Note:  Was this beefeater illustration actually published? Was the drawing of the dandy attacked by books ever finished? If you have access to print images of either of these, please get in touch.

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Ludwig Bemelmans: Fowl Play

A drawing with color by Ludwig Bemelmans is a preliminary sketch for an illustration, or so we are informed by a pencil notation on the verso. Schulson Autographs, the drawing's current seller on the AbeBooks website, describes the action as "an 18th century styled waiter holding a roasted fowl. Two smiling girls appear in the background." That's all well and good, although it might easily be a girl and a boy. Regardless, it doesn't explain the story behind whatever is really going on here.

An upside-down notation on the verso, "Willy's Off,"

Ludwig Bemelmans
AbeBooks listing accessed November 24, 2025

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Original-Drawing-Signed-BEMELMANS-LUDWIG/32345800458/bd

Ludwig Bemelmans
AbeBooks item description

Note:  Readers who can direct me to a finished version of this illustration by Ludwig Bemelmans will surely earn my gratitude, but you'll still have to obtain your own roasted fowl this holiday season.

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James Mulligan: It Takes a One to Know One

An original drawing by cartoonist James Mulligan was sold in May by Dennis Holzman Antiques of Cohoes, New York. It is apparently a rough and, unless we learn otherwise, was never published.

"It takes a yenta to know a yenta."
James Mulligan

James Mulligan's signature

James Mulligan
eBay listing ended May 26, 2025

https://www.ebay.com/itm/267180491061?_skw=signed+Yorker&itmmeta=01K1HKK62NXV7BYZT8C5ZX8X9K&hash=item3e3532c135:g:UnwAAOSwaHpnygVa&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA0FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1f2cCl7Vp7UjDrJ4gz%2FTQvE2Xg%2Fz95KW%2BDOJNjuMqqlsNCX3m6kaWPLhVUAX2p0PSdn%2Fr69x55o%2FS5X00m4ZnM6MD7aAgxwY6w0GioAcB%2FIqXBmEWbghGm7GIX%2FSN1nJKSejf0LQ7iafVFD287%2B9jLJvNPBsJZnDgfU3cRraepHqX270MMlIB9yW8rWvBOYFPm6%2F1wlFkovmIgBvcSoofE5Z8j1xSeetAavAaphQTIBxzPDD1Qv0RfJSRznC8Sx0JY%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR7zhzLOMZg

James Mulligan
eBay item description

Note:  This is the first work of original art by James Mulligan to appear on this blog. I take full responsibility for the oversight. If anyone knows anything further about the yenta cartoon, your input will be appreciated. Collectors with original art by Mulligan are welcome to share images of it here.

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How to Murder a Rich Uncle: Charles Addams Preliminary Art

An original drawing by Charles Addams is currently listed on eBay by an established seller with the all-too-convenient name masteraddamsgreatescape. The 15" x 16" (by sight) work is framed and double-matted. It carries the hefty asking price of $35,000. The seller lists it as PUBLISHED—just like that, in all caps—but has not backed up that assertion with any evidence, even in lower-case.

Now, Addams's classic published cartoon panels are usually in the medium of ink and wash en grisaille on paper. The work in question is a detailed pencil drawing far more typical of an Addams rough.

Of course, this might not be a freestanding cartoon panel at all. The two malevolent onlookers are in no way essential to the humor of the piece. What we have here must be a story illustration of some sort.

The cutaway wall is a seldom-used device in cartoons coming, perhaps, from the stage. It is hard to visualize how this drawing might have been done without it.

Charles Addams
eBay listing accessed May 28, 2025

https://www.ebay.com/itm/116492511122?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D777008%26algo%3DPERSONAL.TOPIC%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20250324084321%26meid%3D874440461ddb4618aa5b900beaba9986%26pid%3D101949%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26itm%3D116492511122%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D4375194%26algv%3DRecentlyViewedItemsV2WithMLRPboosterAndUpdatedFeatures_BP&_trksid=p4375194.c101949.m162918&_trkparms=parentrq%3A19dcb5701970a62e2b65507cffffcd12%7Cpageci%3A50fa6bf5-3c34-11f0-bbfa-0af78e789258%7Ciid%3A1%7Cvlpname%3Avlp_homepage

Charles Addams
eBay item description
"Looks incredible hanging on the wall or in the mancave . . . "

Just maybe the seller is aware that the asking price is on the high side. I received a "special offer" to buy the item at a discount. The deal, alas, is expiring today:

Why then have a pencil drawing so detailed that the seller believes it was actually published in this form? The answer is that this is a preliminary design for a movie poster. As such, it would have had to go through a thorough approval process with the studio. Here is the finished version of the poster art:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050527/

"How to Murder a Rich Uncle"
Charles Addams
Preliminary poster art
1957

The finished art was also printed on a lobby card. This one is currently listed on eBay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/401054484780

The movie used another Addams design as well:

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0050527/mediaviewer/rm933018625/

August 17, 2025 Update:  The eBay seller must have seen my post. Now he knows this was created for a movie and he almost has the title right. He bought a set of lobby cards to include with the framed art. He still calls this a published pencil drawing—and it is still a rough. He has made the 12% discount available to all comers, but the price still seems on the high side.

Note:  If you have some original Charles Addams art of your own hanging in the mancave and you can think of a blog more worthy of posting it than this one, by all means forward your images there. Otherwise, I await your submission.

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William Hamilton: Six Rough Drawings

Yesterday, six rough drawings by cartoonist William Hamilton were sold at auction by Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates. One of them is framed. All have significant toning or paper loss. They are all property from the estate of Regina McKeever Syrjala of Middleburg, VA, who died in 2019 at the age of 100. It seems likely that each of these was submitted to The New Yorker at some point. I do not know if any of these ideas eventually saw print in some form.

Estimated at $150-$250 for the lot, the bidding started at $70. Two weeks before the auction, no bids had yet been placed. 

William Hamilton
Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates listing accessed April 12, 2025

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/william-hamilton-american-1939-2016-cartoon-drawi-2525-c-6be40658c1?objectID=196432086&algIndex=upcoming_lots_lotNumber_asc_prod&queryID=dab774dcc22bc6999fcc94eaf823444d

William Hamilton
Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates item description

William Hamilton
Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates listing accessed April 12, 2025

Sold!

Note:  It's always possible that some of these roughs by William Hamilton were eventually published in finished form, either in The New Yorker or elsewhere. Readers who recognize these as published pieces are asked to contact me. I would also like to hear from collectors who own original art by Hamilton.

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Mary Gibson: Our Little Suburb

John Lindgren writes of his mother, the cartoonist Mary Gibson. She was born in Montclair, New Jersey, in 1914 and passed away in Palm Coast, Florida, in 2007 at the age of 93. Her married name was Lindgren, but she signed her work with her maiden name.

John has hundreds upon hundreds of her original cartoons. One, an unsigned rough, apparently, bears a typewritten caption. He dates it to circa the 1940s but it may have something to say to our own time as well.

"Our little suburb is so quaint and full of atmosphere—inhabited solely by Republicans."
Mary Gibson

Ever the editor, I have corrected the typo soley to solely.

Note:  Was this rough by Mary Gibson ever worked into a finished cartoon and published? I'm lobbying for a bipartisan fact-finding commission to investigate.

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Al Hirschfeld: A Preliminary Sketch of Tony Azito from Joseph Papp's "The Pirates of Penzance"

Tony Azito (1948-1995) became famous seemingly overnight playing the Police Sergeant in Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance." The 1887 comic opera was presented at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in the summer of 1980 with a nontraditional staging and pop score. Azito's over-the-top performance was very athletic, more madcap than anything in the D'Oyly Carte tradition. The show also starred Linda Ronstadt, Rex Smith, Kevin Kline, and George Rose. It was a hit and was later restaged for Broadway. Ultimately it was made into a movie released in 1983.

Theater caricaturist Al Hirschfeld covered the original Shakespeare in the Park production for the New York Times. On July 16, Bradford's Auction Gallery of Sun City, Arizona, sold a preliminary sketch of Azito in costume, one of the six characters in the finished drawing, and the smallest. Hirschfeld roughs don't come to the market very often. This one gives an insight into his working process.

Al Hirschfeld
Bradford's Auction Gallery, July 16, 2023

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/al-hirschfeld-tony-azito-study-for-the-pirates-of-2198-c-5774d228c8?objectID=180710813&algIndex=upcoming_lots_prod&queryID=dc839a92feb8044fd03185a5d5edecba

The full Hirschfeld illustration for the Times was deliberately folded over on itself by the auction house, perhaps in order to make the Police Sergeant appear to be a more prominent figure in the composition. The complete image is available on the website of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation:

         

https://www.alhirschfeldfoundation.org/piece/pirates-penzance-2

"When the Foeman Bares His Steel"

Note:  There are five Ninas. Make sure you count them all.

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Peter Arno: Romancing the Natives

On June 15, Swann Galleries sold two preliminary drawings by The New Yorker's Peter Arno. Neither is signed, but both are unmistakably the master's work. Swann's listing states, "He probably submitted them to the editors as initial ideas for cartoons, but apparently never followed through on them." Except that he did follow through, at least on one of them.

Arno's first sketch in the listing has an oval border and depicts a fully dressed white man in the embrace of two young Polynesian women wearing only grass skirts and flowers in their hair. They are reclining very publicly in an elevated hut, his pith helmet resting on the floor in front of the young women. Their arms are wrapped around him affectionately. A group of native men observe the scene in consternation. One, mostly out of the frame, is pointing out the objectionable behavior.

This sketch has no caption but was apparently meant to find humor in the jealousy of the men. The idea evolved, perhaps with editorial assistance, and went in a somewhat different direction when it was published in 1938 in The New Yorker. The man is now addressed by one of his fellow explorers with, "But, Professor, remember the thousands of little school children who gave their pennies to send us on this expedition." Visually, Arno's instincts did not serve him well here. He abandoned the depiction of tenderness that made the preliminary sketch so memorable and further objectified the women, who are now African and fully naked except for their neck rings.

"But, Professor, remember the thousands of little school children
who gave their pennies to send us on this expedition."
Peter Arno
The New Yorker, October 8, 1938, p. 16 

This sort of gag cartoon was a popular trope which today strikes us as sexist and racist, but was widely accepted in American print media in the 1930s. The drawing was collected in 1945 in The Peter Arno Pocket Book without an apparent second thought.

"But, Professor, remember the thousands of little school
children who gave their pennies to
send us on this expedition."
Peter Arno
The Peter Arno Pocket Book (1945)

https://flashbak.com/18-great-cartoons-peter-arno-pocket-book-1945-61156/

The second Arno rough shows three performers backstage at a vaudeville or variety show peeking through the curtains, probably with varying degrees of anxiety, at a laughing audience. It might have been a study for a New Yorker spot, or a cover, or perhaps a cartoon. It does not have, or seem to require, a caption. Arno may or may not have worked this idea up further. 

Both drawings together had a presale estimate of $600 to $900. They sold for a hammer price of $500, or for $625 with the buyer's premium.

Peter Arno
Swann Galleries, June 15, 2023

https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/Lots/auction-lot/ARNO-PETER-(1904-1968)-Two-cartoons?saleno=2641&lotNo=236&refNo=807209

Incidentally, on the page opposite Arno's cartoon in The New Yorker is an outstanding short piece, "The Letters of James Thurber." You can read it in its entirety right here and, no doubt, guess the identity of the author who here goes by Anon.

A cartoon by Peter Arno and "The Letters of James Thurber" by "Anon"

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1938-10-08/flipbook/016/

July 12, 2024 Update:  Peter Arno's original art has come to light.

"But, Professor, remember the thousands of children who gave their pennies to send us on this expedition."
Peter Arno
Original art
The New Yorker, October 8, 1938, p. 16 

The typed caption is affixed to the art.

Note:  Unpublished work by Peter Arno isn't so easy to come by but for anyone who does, you're looking at a blog that can publicize it.

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