Finally!
The Roy Nelson artwork has arrived. :)
Check it out!
And for your viewing pleasure, some close-ups.
You can find references to the prohibition with speakeasies and smugglers. And there's a talkie and a pole sitter. This would date the artwork to ca 1930. I bet there are some famous actors portrayed here. Any guess?
Anyone who knows where it was published? I'd love to have the printed magazine. The back of the illustration says "G-#5 12/18". Any bells ringing?
6 comments:
Great original, Full of energy! Based on the time period and layout, I'm pretty sure this was drawn for the Sunday magazine supplement of the Chicago Daily News.
This early style reminds me quite a bit of early Roy Crane. Very similar shapes and poses.
S.
Fantastic! Seems to have a late-20s vibe.
The "Hello, Sucker!" drawing is a reference to Texas Guinan and her famous speakeasy, The 300 Club. Both she and prohibition died in 1933, so that provides an upper limit for the picture.
The guy in that same drawing rather resembles me. So why don't I have women dressed like that coming up to me in speakeasies? Life ain't fair.
Curiousity gnawed at me, so I pulled out the Perpetual Calendar.
Assume cartoonretro is correct in identifying this as a Sunday supplement illustration. 12/18 is probably the print date. The only Prohibition years that had a Sunday, December 18 are 1921 and 1927.
I vote for 1927. The flapper look of the women in the cartoon wasn't that well established in the US in 1921 (Wikipedia says the term and the style took off in the US in 1920 following release that year of the movie "The Flapper"). By 1927 however the fashion was solidly entrenched.
Of course if this WASN'T a Sunday feature, all bets are off.
Beautiful art!
I would be surprised if these went back as far as 1927, which was Nelson's first year at the Daily News, but it's possible. The style & brush technique is very close to examples I have from 1930.
The unusual layout wouldn't have appeared in the regular daily paper, but is very similar to the layouts in the supplement magazine I have from '30.
Another original from this same period came up for sale years back, and the seller thought it came from a movie mag like Photoplay, but in 6 years of research I've never seen a single Nelson illustration in a magazine other than Esquire.
S.
Ron:
Great research! Never heard of Texas Guinan before. Thanks!
The guy I bought mine from found it on eBay several years ago. It came from an estate along with three or four other Nelson pieces.
Now, the seller told me that he had seen lots of Nelson art published in a movie magazine, and that they used Nelson as an illustrator for a number of years. (!!!)
Shane:
Let the treasure hunt begin! ;)
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