Jules Feiffer Collection Leads Swann's Illustration Art Auction
David Levine, Jules Feiffer with Cigar, unpublished caricature illustration, ink on paper, 1983. Estimate $1,000 - $1,500
Swann Galleries' Illustration Art sale on June 20 will showcase a selection of original artworks including a section of cartoon and comic art collected by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and author Jules Feiffer.
Of particular interest is an original section cover art for The Spirit, acquired by Feiffer while working for Will Eisner, signed “To Jules Feiffer, reluctantly, Will Eisner.” Through the 1950s and 1960s, Feiffer admired other artists such as David Levine, Ed Sorel, and Milton Caniff, and began collecting their work. The collection he amassed records his enduring enthusiasm for comic art and his lasting friendships with those artists.
Highlights of the sale include:
* a cartoon by Alexander Calder depicting a conversation between two artists: “My time is evenly divided. I spend half my time looking for work, and the other half trying to collect for it.” “When do you have time to paint?” “In my spare time.”
* an illustration by George Gibbs, reproduced as a postcard and distributed to over 300 million households to launch a major campaign by Bell Telephone Company to introduce the candlestick telephone
* the iconic record album cover illustration for Year of the Cat (Al Stewart, RCA Records/UK, 1976) by Colin Elgie, an imaginative depiction of a woman surrounded by cat-themed items
* a rare example of Mark Tansey's work as illustrator, Waiting in Line to Look, in pen and ink
