Items Similar to 'Golf' original ink and graphite drawing by American cartoonist Al Capp
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 10
Al Capp'Golf' original ink and graphite drawing by American cartoonist Al Capp1932
1932
About the Item
This exquisite yet unfinished drawing by American cartoonist Al Capp, entitled 'Golf,' presents a humorous view of the beloved game. The composition depicts four men and two boys gathered around, apparently mid-game on the green. Of the figures, only the two boys are finished, along with the golf clubs at their feet – each masterfully inked in a series of contours and hatch-marks essential to twentieth-century cartooning. The other figures, drawn in pencil, are roughly sketched. It is truly in the faces of the figures, however, that Capp captures the satire of the scene: their exaggerated features and sly glances show the playfulness of their relationship and the competition at hand.
8.5 x 8.5 inches, drawing
9.5 x 9.5 inches, sheet
13.75 x 13.75 inches, frame
not signed
full provenance extending to artist
Overall good condition; some minor toning to paper edges.
Presented in a silver aluminum frame, mounted against black matboard, and protected behind glass.
Al Capp was a celebrity-cartoonist and creator of Lil Abner. The strip began in 1934, and the sardonic, pugnacious Capp masterminded it until its end in 1977. During the long life span of the satirical hillbilly saga, he swung from liberal to conservative politically, earned a great deal of money and publicity, appeared on radio, television, and in any other medium that would give him an opportunity to hold forth. He carried on some impressive feuds, and gave the outward impression he was having an enormously good time living his life.
He was born Alfred Gerald Caplin in New Haven, Connecticut. "My mother and father had been brought to this country when they were infants," he once said. "Their fathers had found that the great promise of America was true, -it was no crime to be a Jew." No crime, but not as advantageous, Capp felt, as being a gentile. He remembered his early years as a period of struggle and lack of enough to eat. "In my real childhood the hunger was painful," he recalled near the end of his life. "In Lil Abner it was hilarious."
When he was nine, he was run over by a trolley car and lost his leg. The youthful Capp vowed the accident would make no difference, but it obviously did. It curtailed his participation in sports, meant he couldn't dance, things seemed vitally important in his teenage years. "I looked for other diversions," he said. "I wonder if it wasn't because of the wooden leg, slowing me down, that I had patience to study art." He also had time to read, favoring such humorous novelists as Dickens, Smollett, Mark Twain, and Booth Tarkington.
After dropping out of a couple of art schools, Capp managed to land a job with the Associated Press in New York City. That was in 1932, and he drew a daily panel entitled Mister Gilfeather. Gilfeather was a pale imitation of the much more successful Major Hoople of Our Boarding House, and young Capps less than first-rate artwork did little to enhance the feature. He left the job after a few months, agreeing with one of the client editors who had complained to the AP, that the panel was "by far the worst in the country." Some months later he met Ham Fisher, which changed Capps life for good. The panel, meantime, was taken over by Milton Caniff.
Both men recounted the story of how Capp and Fisher met several times over the years. Initially, Capp said he had been walking along a Manhattan street when an expensive auto pulled up beside him and a prosperous gentleman in the back seat inquired if the portfolio under Capp's arm contained drawings. When Capp replied in the affirmative, Fisher invited him over to his studio to help him finish an overdue Joe Palooka Sunday page. Liking the way Capp handled the emergency chore, Fisher hired him as an assistant. Before a bitter and long-lasting feud developed, Capp had said, "I owe most of my success to him, for I learned many tricks of the trade while working alongside him." In later years, Capp modified his views. "I regard him as a leper," he said when alluding to his former boss in a 1950 article in The Atlantic Monthly, "a veritable goldmine of swineishness." He even implied that Fisher's fancy car, at their initial meeting, had almost run him over.
It was while working Joe Palooka that Capp first began experimenting with the possibilities of using hillbilly characters in a comic strip. Being Fisher's assistant meant that Capp actually did all the drawing and some of the writing. In 1933, he introduced an uncouth hillbilly boxer named Big Leviticus and his uncouth kin to the strip. The character caught on, and Fisher continued to use him after Capp departed. Capp claimed he had been thinking about some sort of rural characters ever since he had made a trip to the South years before. Dreaming of a larger salary and less "swineish" working conditions, Capp began doing samples of a strip of his own, one devoted entirely to rural characters.
Capp initially took his samples of Lil Abner to King Features, but they procrastinated and kept making suggestions for changes. The impatient Capp took his strip to United Features where it was purchased "just as it was." The starting salary did not approach what King might have offered, but "I was able to do my strip exactly as I wanted to." The first daily appeared in August 1934, and Capp, who had changed his name from Caplin when the new strip was launched, was on his way to fame and fortune. Although Lil Abner started slowly, it picked up papers throughout the 1930s at an impressive rate. In the 1940s, the strip continued to forge ahead toward its eventual peak circulation of 900 newspapers around the world. Capp found himself being hailed as not only a brilliant artist, but also the greatest satirist since Swift, Voltaire, and Mark Twain. There were Lil Abner comic books, a Lil Abner movie, and lucrative Lil Abner advertising strips.
Capp remained in the limelight for the rest of his life. He has been written about in Life, Time, Newsweek, and dozens of other magazines. He contributed articles to prestigious periodicals such as The Atlantic Monthly, wrote a newspaper column of his own, and consulted on the Broadway musical based on his strip. He was frequently interviewed on radio and television, conducted a radio show of his own, and was one of the founding fathers of the cartoon division of the Famous Artists School. In order to follow all these extra activities, Capp hired assistants and ghosts to take care of Lil Abner early in his career.
By the 1960s, Capp had grown increasingly conservative. Many of the targets of his satire were perceived by his younger readers as liberal and therefore above kidding. Capp took to quoting with approval the advice fellow cartoonist Harold Gray had given him: "Buy a farm with a big stone wall around it because they are coming: the bums and the Russians." His strip started losing papers in the 1970s, and Capp started losing enthusiasm. "The heart had gone out of me," he admitted, "maybe a year or so before there were any great cancellations."
Source: Ron Goulart, "The Encyclopedia of American Comics" via the archives of AskArt
- Creator:Al Capp (1909 - 1979, American)
- Creation Year:1932
- Dimensions:Height: 13.75 in (34.93 cm)Width: 13.75 in (34.93 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Overall good condition; some minor toning to paper edges.
- Gallery Location:Milwaukee, WI
- Reference Number:
About the Seller
4.9
Platinum Seller
These expertly vetted sellers are 1stDibs' most experienced sellers and are rated highest by our customers.
Established in 1966
1stDibs seller since 2017
391 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: 1 hour
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Milwaukee, WI
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 14 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- Female Artist Surrealism Modern Contemporary Drawing Graphite Mandala SignedLocated in Milwaukee, WI"The Presence" is an original graphite drawing created by Cynthia Torroll. This is a meditation on meditation. It took the artist two months and two days to draw this piece. Torroll ...Category
2010s Surrealist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsGraphite, Paper
- "Monkey Island at Washington Park Zoo" Graphite & Charcoal by Francesco SpicuzzaBy Francesco SpicuzzaLocated in Milwaukee, WI"Monkey Island at Washington Park Zoo" is an original graphite and charcoal drawing on paper by Francesco Spicuzza. It depicts a number of figures gazing out at a monkey enclosure at a zoo. The artist signed the piece in the lower left. 8 1/2" x 11 3/4" art 17 1/4" x 21 1/8" frame Francesco J. Spicuzza, born in Sicily on July 23, 1883, came to America at the age of 8. He supported himself as a fruit peddler until a newspaperman gave him $4 a week to go to school. He attended classes at the Milwaukee Art Students League, where he studied under Alexander Mueller. There he learned to paint in the then-fashionable "Munich School" technique, with detailed realism in heavy browns and grayed-out hues. Spicuzza completed eight grades in four years, and then in 1911, three businessmen advanced him enough money to allow him to study in New York under artist and teacher John Carlson. It was during this time that Spicuzza changed his style of painting, developing an impressionistic use of color, form and atmospheric renditions. After a period of grinding poverty, one of Spicuzza's pictures won a major New York competition. It was the first of 60 wins, both in the U.S. and Paris. He became a fashionable painter, and many of the leading collections have his work. Spicuzza's typical works were beach scenes, still life, landscapes and portraits done in pastels, oils, ink, charcoal and watercolors. Much of his work traced the history of Milwaukee in the early 1900s. He was probably best known for his scenes of women and children splashing in...Category
1950s Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsCharcoal, Graphite, Paper
- 'Billie the Brownie Laughing' original watercolor by Sylvia SpicuzzaBy Sylvia SpicuzzaLocated in Milwaukee, WIIn this painting, Sylvia Spicuzza demonstrates her skill as an illustration artist, representing the Milwaukee character Billie the Brownie with a growing spring of a tree. An illustration like this could grace the pages of a children's book or illustrated magazine, or as an advertisement for Schuster’s Department Store. Watercolor, gouache and graphite on paper 8 x 5.75 inches, artwork 14 x 12 inches, frame Stamped with artist signature, below image, lower left. Presented in a new custom frame with a gold-finish neoclassical wood moulding, archival matting and mounting materials; and UV glass to inhibit fading. Born in 1908, Sylvia Spicuzza was the daughter of noted painter Francesco Spicuzza. Sylvia devoted herself to teaching art to the students of Lake Bluff Elementary School in Shorewood, WI. During this time Sylvia produced a magnificent body of work that was undiscovered until her death. Sylvia's work is rich, diverse and fascinating collection of drawings, watercolors and prints from the 1920's to the 1990's. Her style ranges from early figurative drawings to regionalism, Art Deco, lyrical abstractions of every conceivable subject (both real and imagined), as well as figurative paintings that reflect the work of Picasso, Kandinsky and Max Ernst in the 1930's and 1940's. Biomorphic and organic, Modernist images are presented with Sylvia Spicuzza's own unique sense of style, humor and fantasy. Billie the Brownie was a multi-media star of Christmas in Milwaukee from the 1920s to the 1950s. Years earlier, the writer and artist Palmer Cox...Category
1940s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsGraphite, Gouache, Paper, Watercolor
- 'Reclining Nude, ' after Degas study for 'Les Maheurs de la Ville d'Orleans'By Joan DvorskyLocated in Milwaukee, WIIn this drawing, Milwaukee-based artist Joan Dvorsky presents a drawing after a sketch by Edgar Degas. Degas' original drawing was a study for an 1863 painting entitled 'Les malheurs...Category
1990s Impressionist Nude Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsGraphite, Paper
- "Woman in Coat & Fancy Hat, " Graphite Drawing signed by Sylvia SpicuzzaBy Sylvia SpicuzzaLocated in Milwaukee, WI"Woman in Coat & fancy Hat" is a graphite drawing signed by Sylvia Spicuzza. An older woman is sketched as she stands. She is wearing a winter coat and quite a large hat. Art: 8.25...Category
1950s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsGraphite
- "Woman in Fancy Costume Estate #752, " Watercolor & Graphite signed by SpicuzzaBy Sylvia SpicuzzaLocated in Milwaukee, WI"Woman In Fancy Costume Estate #752" is a watercolor and graphite signed by Sylvia Spicuzza. A woman stands with arms stretched out. The lady is wearing a red and white stripped outf...Category
1950s American Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsGraphite, Watercolor
You May Also Like
- 4th of July No. 2, 1983Located in Columbia, MOJerry Berneche (1932 - 2016) was a painter and draftsman of representational scenes and portraits featuring extraordinary color work and extremely detailed mark-making. Locally he is...Category
20th Century American Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsInk, Graphite
- 4th of July, No. 3Located in Columbia, MOJerry Berneche (1932 - 2016) was a painter and draftsman of representational scenes and portraits featuring extraordinary color work and extremely detailed mark-making. Locally he is...Category
20th Century American Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsInk, Graphite
- TemptationLocated in Columbia, MOJerry Berneche (1932 - 2016) was a painter and draftsman of representational scenes and portraits featuring extraordinary color work and extremely detailed mark-making. Locally he is...Category
20th Century American Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsInk, Graphite
- Self Portrait with Armor, 1973Located in Columbia, MOJerry Berneche (1932 - 2016) was a painter and draftsman of representational scenes and portraits featuring extraordinary color work and extremely detailed mark-making. Locally he is...Category
20th Century American Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsInk, Graphite
- 4th of July No. 1, 1975Located in Columbia, MOJerry Berneche (1932 - 2016) was a painter and draftsman of representational scenes and portraits featuring extraordinary color work and extremely detailed mark-making. Locally he is...Category
20th Century American Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsInk, Graphite
- Parlor No. 2, 1973Located in Columbia, MOJerry Berneche (1932 - 2016) was a painter and draftsman of representational scenes and portraits featuring extraordinary color work and extremely detailed mark-making. Locally he is...Category
20th Century American Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsInk, Graphite
