Then and Now: Traffic Cones and The New Yorker

New York City's orange traffic cones can be seen all over town. They have occasionally made their way from the streets into the art of The New Yorker magazine. There is, for example, cartoonist Mort Gerberg's seasonally-themed "Sketchbook" from the issue of October 26, 1998:

"Sketchbook"
Mort Gerberg
The New Yorker, October 26, 1998, p. 258

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1998-10-26/flipbook/258/

This year, The New Yorker didn't publish a Halloween cover, or so the magazine would have us believe. Still, it is hard to imagine that the September 23 cover by Christoph Niemann wasn't at some point considered for the last week in October. Orange steam funnels and traffic cones inspire the evening fashion of one of the city's denizens. The New Yorker can call this the Fall Style & Design cover all it wants, but to me it still looks like a Halloween cover. I see what I see.

"Smoke and Mirrors"
Christoph Niemann
The New Yorker, September 23, 2024

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2024-09-23/flipbook/CV1/

Note:  Interested coneheads can find the original 1998 art by Mort Gerberg at the end of my post on his New-York Historical Society exhibition here. Christoph Niemann's original art, on the other hand, is presumably not a work on paper and never to be displayed on a gallery wall.

Last month, on his Ink Spill blog, cartoonist Michael Maslin noted how magazine cover art imitates life, citing this 2017 Halloween costume.

04786

Labor Day 2023 at The New Yorker

At The New Yorker, Labor Day 2023 looks very much like Labor Day 2001. Today's Daily Cartoon published online is by Paul Karasik:

Labor Day
Paul Karasik
Daily Cartoon, September 4, 2023

https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/monday-september-4th-labor-day

This Daily resembes a color "Sketchbook" cartoon by Danny Shanahan published in the magazine back in 2001. It's not clear to me whether fact-checkers review the Daily Cartoons in search of such similarities or whether they even work on Labor Day.

"Sketchbook"
Danny Shanahan
The New Yorker, September 3, 2001, p. 65

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/2001-09-03/flipbook/064/

04433

Sketchbook Page by William Hamilton, PFC

William Hamilton's sketchbook pages in pen and ink unmistakably come from the same hand as his finished drawings. They could never be mistaken for those of any other artist. Aside from all that, who would not be impressed in the sketch shown below with the fun this cartoonist has noting his (former) military rank?

William Hamilton
eBay listing accessed September 21, 2020

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Sketch-William-Hamilton-New-Yorker-Cartoonist-Signed-Autographed-RARE/362896055356?hash=item547e4a5c3c:g:WngAAOSwEaJeL4ic

William Hamilton
eBay Item Description

Note:  Are William Hamilton's sketchbook pages pure exercises in drawing or are they attempts to develop specific cartoons? If you can match up a sketchbook drawing with a published cartoon, please step forward.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

William Hamilton

Sketchbook Pages

Wine

Attempted Bloggery's Unranked Index

 

03389

At the Piano: Stan's Sketchbook Page by William Hamilton

A young woman at the piano is the subject of a sketchbook page by New Yorker cartoonist William Hamilton. The piano has to be taken on faith; it is left out of the drawing. The sketch is inscribed "For Stan with best wishes" and signed by Hamilton with the date June 15, 1991. The sheet has one horizontal fold and two vertical folds, each of which go into the image. Tsk-tsk, Stan.

William Hamilton
eBay Listing Ended June 23, 2016

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-New-Yorker-Cartoonist-William-Hamilton-Autographed-Signed-Original-Sketch-/351767109699?hash=item51e6f42043%3Ag%3AvFAAAOSwqu9U622s&nma=true&si=MY%252BVlM1DDf4MNMNGGnCdh3m%252FHQQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

William Hamilton
eBay Item Description

Note:  Just on the basis of the two sketchbook pages by William Hamilton that have appeared on this blog to date and another currently on eBay, I am going to go out on a limb (my favorite part of the tree) and state that of all the New Yorker cartoonists I chronicle, he was the most likely to tear a page out of his sketchbook and inscribe it to a stan—sorry, fan. As I have based this sweeping conclusion on an extremely small sample, I invite readers to respond with their own observations. I also invite the submission to the blog of other sketchbook page images by Hamilton or by other New Yorker artists. All sketchbook pages are welcome, but this argument specifically is about pages removed from a sketchbook by the artist, as opposed to by some dealer, and dedicated in writing to a recipient.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

William Hamilton

Sketchbook Pages

Pianos

Attempted Bloggery's Note by Note Index

03384

A William Hamilton Sketchbook Page

A sketchbook page by cartoonist William Hamilton currently on eBay is dedicated by the artist to someone named Kevan. The ink sketches on both sides of the sheet are in Mr. Hamilton's signature style. The selvage at the edge of the page shows where the sheet was torn from a sketchbook's spiral binding. Such sketches as this may be "rare"--the eBay seller's term--to the market, but they are not rare in their existence. Artists fill sketchbooks constantly, and the pages are plentiful even if they don't get out much.

Putting a dollar value on such a rare yet plentiful item isn't so simple. If there were a real demand for these pages, artists would be happy to sell any number of them once they were no longer needed. The more well-known the artist, the greater the market demand generally. The Buy It Now price here of $899.99 is to my mind quite steep, well exceeding the sale price of at least some of Mr. Hamilton's finished drawings. There is a Make Offer option as well, suggesting the seller might be willing to entertain a reasonable offer.

William Hamilton. Sketchbook page, recto, signed and inscribed "For Kevan/Wm Hamilton"

William Hamilton. Sketchbook page, verso

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Yorker-Cartoonist-William-Hamilton-Signed-Autograph-Original-Sketch-1-1-RARE-/370844217726?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item565809b17e

Note:  Don't miss my previous posts on William Hamilton.

Sketchbook pages by New Yorker cartoonists show up relatively infrequently on eBay, but there are two there right now, the subjects of the last two days's blog posts. The usual pattern is that a page is gifted by an artist to a friend or maybe to an admirer of the drawing and it remains in the confines of that person's home for perhaps the better part of a lifetime. Then one day it receives some publicity briefly in order for a sale to be made, and soon, if all goes well, it disappears into another collection, that of the buyer. We live in a digital age now and matters don't have to remain this way. Owners of such sketchbook pages can scan them or photograph them and pass them along to me or someone else willing to display them and—voilà!—the world is a richer place. My door is open....

01207

A Frank Modell Theater Sketch

A framed drawing by cartoonist Frank Modell now on eBay is fresh from the estate of philanthropist Sue Erpf van de Bovenkamp (1928-2011). The eBay seller states this sketch dated 1961 "needs research." I beg to differ. This is almost certainly an unpublished sketchbook page by Modell depicting audience members in a theater. That's pretty much it. You're welcome.

Frank Modell. Theater sketch, 1961

Frank Modell. Theater sketch, 1961

Frank Modell's signature

Frank Modell. Theater sketch, 1961

Frank Modell. Theater sketch detail, 1961

Frank Modell. Theater sketch detail, 1961

Frank Modell. Theater sketch, 1961

The writing on the cardboard backing merely conforms what the artist has written on the drawing.

At the time of framing this 1961 sketch, the five-digit zip code had not yet been introduced. That was to occur in 1963.

Does anyone find this sort of thing helpful?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FRANK-MODELL-NEW-YORKER-MAGAZINE-LISTED-CARTOONIST-AUCTION-RECORDS-TO-7000-/291071739199?

The asking price was subsequently reduced.

The previous owner was a noted New York socialite. Here is her paid death notice from the Times:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=sue-van-de-bovenkamp&pid=150003231

Her home, presumably where this sketch hung, sold for $23 million:

http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/08/24/real-estate-investor-wife-buy-ues-co-op-for-23m/

Note:  This sketch "needs research;" that's what the seller said. This blog is just teeming with any variety of posts that need research into publication history and other issues, but I don't see this particular sketch being one of them.

The few posts I have written about Frank Modell tend to be about a lot of other things as well.

01206