Bill Toma's limited edition bronze figurine of Band Concert Mickey presents a head-on view of Mickey Mouse in one of his greatest roles. This is Mickey as he would like to be remembered, if I may so give him human attributes and emotions, seeing to the band's musical needs and for the moment untroubled by the distracting presence of Donald Duck.
Mickey Mouse, The Band Concert Bronze Figurine Signed by Bill Toma#13/25, 1993, Ex-Collection Kerby Confer
I was at first a bit surprised at the high hammer price achieved by this evidently quick marker sketch of Peppermint Patty, but Schulz sketches of this large size are a rarity. While I don't love the rapid rendering of the feet and especially of the hand, it would be pointless to deny the huge overall appeal of this piece.
This is absolutely gorgeous original artwork to a Pogo strip from 1967. I know $676 is a lot of money, but it nevertheless seems to me that Walt Kelly's genius is undervalued in today's comic art marketplace.
Walt Kelly, Pogo, January 12, 1967, eBay Winning Bid
This hand-written letter contains the only drawing by Ronald Searleto be offered for sale at Christie's South Kensington this summer, a sad state of affairs indeed for collectors, and one which would have been almost unthinkable just a couple of years ago when the artist, apparently, was quietly selling off many classic drawings at the venerable auction house. In this 1947 letter, Searle, unable to come up with a recent photograph of himself, has one of his St. Trinian's girls "draw" his portrait instead, something that is infinitely preferable, one would think, than any publicity photo. The letter sold for less than twice its high estimate which in the cool light of day, given some recent stratospheric prices for coveted St. Trinian's drawings, seems fairly reasonable.
Ronald Searle, A Letter to Miss Kerley, Christie's South Kensington Auction Listing
Note:My previous post aboutRonald Searle is here.Thesubject is Mostly Mozart and the postcontains a Searle cat drawing never before seen on the internet. Would I lie to you?
Every writer and indeed every illustrator who writes gags has had to deal with editors, but only Richard Taylor has seemingly solved the problem of the perfect author-editor relationship. Or has he?
Here is his original 1952 artwork for the New Yorker, as recently sold on eBay. Note that in Taylor's original caption, the monks "have established a perfect author-editor relationship" whilethe published version inthe New Yorker hasmonks who merely "have a wonderful author-editor relationship." In other words, the New Yorker's editors couldn't resist tinkering with a caption even about the author-editor relationship.
It isn't supposed to happen, but sometimes the winning bidder can't or won't complete an eBay transaction for whatever reason. The original winning bid of $810 evidently proved problematic for the buyer, so the item was sold a few days later to the underbidder dnbuch23 with the Buy It Now feature for his top bid of $800.
Richard Taylor, "They have established a perfect author-editor relationship." Original artwork for The New Yorker, March 8, 1952, p. 25
Richard Taylor, "They have established a perfect author-editor relationship." Original artwork for The New Yorker, March 8, 1952, p. 25
R. Taylor's Perfect Author-Editor Relationship, eBay Winning Bid, June 11, 2012
Last week we saw how a rare piece of animation art featuring the oldest color Mickey Mouse celin existence was purchased from Heritage Auctions in Beverly Hills and resold at a huge profit at Profiles in History in Calabasas Hills, California. This sort of thing does happen every now and then, but lest you think it's easy to pull it off, here's a cautionary tale.
This original animation art of Donald Duck with matching production background from Walt Disney's "The Band Concert" (1935) was also purchased at Heritage Auctions in Beverly Hills, possibly by the same individual. After selling for $10,755, it was relisted at Profiles in History with an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000. All well and good, but it did not find a buyer the second time around.
So the extraordinary seven-fold profit on the Mickey Mouse animation art has to be weighed against the real risk of not being able to resell artwork at all. Put another way, there is no such thing as a sure thing. Still, the Donald Duck isn't by any means an unworthy piece of animation art to be stuck holding.
Original production cel of Donald Duck with production background from Walt Disney Studios, "The Band Concert" (1935) Heritage Auction Listing
Donald Duck original production cel with production background from The Band Concert - (Walt Disney Studios, 1935) An extremely rare and early original production cel of Donald Duck with the matching original background from The Band Concert. In a 1994 poll of animators, this short was rated as the third greatest cartoon of all time, and for many years a setup from this cartoon held the record for the highest amount paid in auction for animation art. The particular scene pictured appears at the end of the short when Donald plays his flute for the last time. Image measures 8 ¾ in. x 11 ½ in. with overall dimensions 10 in. x 12 ½ in. A phenomenal piece of animation history. This item WAS NOT SOLD, auction date was 2011 Dec 17 @ 11:00UTC-8 : PST
Walt Disney Studios, original production cel of Donald Duck with production background from "The Band Concert" (1935) Profiles in History auction listing
Bach: Cantatas, Vol 16 (BWV 194, 119) /Bach Collegium Japan (1999)
Masaaki Suzuki
If you were living in the vicinity of, let us say, Leipzig in 1723 and you wished to celebrate the inauguration of, perhaps, a church organ or, more correctly in this case, an actual church, and then if you were also fortunate enough to have a lot of money, you could go to the Cantor of St. Thomas, one Johann Sebastian Bach, and commission a cantata for public performance. That indeed is the origin of BWV 194, "Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest," apparently reworked from a lost secular original.
Bach was also commissioned to write a cantata annually for the Leipzig council elections, and BWV 119, "Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn," is his first such work, also from 1723. Bach wrote a great many sacred cantatas, and somehow these, like so many others, are of an exceedingly high caliber. Masaaki Suzukileads the Bach Collegium Japan in a superb performance.
Here's a spot drawing by cartoonist Alan Dunn from the New Yorker issue of September 16, 1939. Spots are truly ephemera, used to relieve the visual severity of a page filled with type, and unlikely to ever be collected in any form after the original publication.
Alan Dunn The New Yorker, September 16, 1939, page 4
October 4, 2020 Update: I believe I misread this one. The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker doesn't consider this a spot drawing but a regular gag cartoon. No doubt it is meant to be a humorous commentary on privacy as the magazine's readers entered the 1939 election season.
Malcolm Gladwellis a national treasure! All right, he's Canadian, but I'll claim him anyway. He does write for the New Yorker, after all. This is the third book of his I've read, easily the best, although all are really quite good.
Gladwell tells the story of successful individuals in a way you probably haven't heard before. He uses research from psychology and, it would appear, demographics, to explode some of the myths we have about success, and to show what, besides obvious raw talent, really underlies the phenomenal achievement of a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs.
This is not by any stretch a self-help book on success, but it will give anyone insights on the phenomenon of success in our society. I give this book my highest recommendation.
