Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 8

Hilary Knight
Ann Miller in Follies Broadway Musical Contemporary Drawing Illustration Eloise

1998

About the Item

Ann Miller in Follies Broadway Musical Contemporary Drawing Illustration Eloise Ann Miller in Stephen Sondheim's "Follies." The 1998 production, played at the Papermill Playhouse. Affixed to the back of the drawing is a brochure promoting the show. Mixed media on paper. Signed lower left. Inscribed lower right: "Ann Miller at 75 'I'm Still Here' in Stephen Sondheim's 'Follies' 1998." Framed. 17 x 12 in. (sight). 22 1/2 x 17 1/2 in. (frame) 'Tops in Taps' Ann Miller was still going strong at 75 years old when she made her last appearance in the musical, "Follies." She was one of M.G.M's most prolific dancers and considered by many to be the greatest female tap dancer of all time. Hilary, a friend of many years, is still going strong at 96. We saw this production at the Papermill Playhouse. Years ago, I was a press agent working in Henry Luhrman's office where we represented "Sugar Babies" with Ann Miller and Mickey Rooney. Bio Hilary Knight (born November 1, 1926) is an American writer-artist who is the illustrator of more than 50 books and the author of nine books. He is best known as the illustrator of Kay Thompson's Eloise (1955) and others in the Eloise series. Knight has illustrated for a wide variety of clients, creating artwork for magazines, children's fashion advertisements, greeting cards, record albums and posters for Broadway musicals, including Gypsy, Irene, Half A Sixpence, Hallelujah Baby! and No, No Nanette. The son of artist-writers Clayton Knight and Katharine Sturges, Hilary Knight was born on Long Island in Hempstead. His father illustrated aviation books, and his mother was a fashion and book illustrator. Living in Roslyn, New York as a child, Hilary was age six when he moved to Manhattan with his family. Knight recalled: "As a child, I loved to look at a set of books which belonged to my mother. They were illustrated by Edmund Dulac in a romantic, wonderful, detailed manner. I know he has influenced my style." After study with George Grosz and Reginald Marsh at the Art Students League, Knight labored as a ship painter while serving in the Navy from 1944 to 1946. Returning to New York, he studied architectural drafting (at Delahanty Institute), interior design and theatre design, working for one summer as an assistant designer at an Ogunquit, Maine theater. He painted murals in private homes and entered the field of magazine illustration, starting with Mademoiselle in 1952, followed by House & Garden, Gourmet, McCalls and Woman's Home Companion. His work as a humorous illustrator was strongly influenced by the British cartoonist Ronald Searle. In 1955, he collaborated with Kay Thompson to create the whimsical black/white/pink look of Eloise. The live CBS television adaptation on Playhouse 90 (1956) with Evelyn Rudie as Eloise received such negative reviews that Kay Thompson vowed never to allow another film or TV adaptation. Three book sequels followed: Eloise in Paris (1957), Eloise at Christmastime (1958) and Eloise in Moscow (1959). Thompson and Knight teamed to create another sequel, Eloise Takes a Bawth, working with children's book editor Ursula Nordstrom. That title was announced in the Harper Books for Boys and Girls fall 1964 catalog, but in the mid-1960s, Thompson removed the three Eloise sequels from print and did not allow [Eloise Takes a Bawth] to be published. It was an action that deprived her collaborator of income for decades (a situation that changed with Thompson's death in 1998). In Salon, Amy Benfer speculated on Thompson's motives in "Will the real Eloise please stand up?" (June 1, 1999): "Kay Thompson got sick of us. Our initial admiration—a mass consumption of all things Eloise—was viewed as imitation and she did not consider it a form of flattery. Adults and children flooded the Plaza, all insisting that they were Eloise... I think she became jealous. So does Hilary Knight, Thompson's illustrator and collaborator. His pink-splashed black and white drawings of the child Maurice Sendak called, "that brazen loose-limbed delicious little girl monster" provide the punch line to Thompson's allusive, scatting prose. Knight's contribution to a 1996 profile of Thompson in Vanity Fair is an illustration that shows Thompson kicking the chair out from under Eloise to scrawl "I am Eloise" in lipstick on the vanity mirror in the Plaza's powder room. Knight's illustration may seem a little tawdry. But then again, Knight himself got into something of a tangle with Ms. Thompson over the ownership of Eloise. Their professional relationship effectively ended when Thompson pulled from publication a nearly completed manuscript of yet another sequel; this one was entitled Eloise Takes a Bawth. In later years, Thompson refused to return Knight's phone calls. Kay Thompson's sense of possession was so strong that she became unwilling to share Eloise, even with the person who literally animated the child in her head."" Eloise Takes a Bawth was finally published in 2002 Knight recalled: "Kay and I were like parents to Eloise. We decided that we'd never make her older than six, and that we'd always keep the parents in the background. When you really study the book, you see that Eloise is somewhat wistful. And I guess my job now is to continue what Kay might have thought she was doing when she pulled the books in the first place—to protect Eloise." Other publications with Knight illustrations include Good Housekeeping and the children's magazine, Cricket. In addition to creating children's picture books—among them, in collaboration with poet Margaret Fishback, A Child's Book of Natural History (USA: Platt & Monk, 1969), a revision and extension of A Child's Primer of Natural History by Oliver Herford—Knight has illustrated for other genres, such as Peg Bracken's The I Hate to Cook Book. The roll call of artists Knight admires includes Ludwig Bemelmans, Joseph Hirsch, Leo Lionni, Robert Vickrey and Garth Williams. Over decades, Knight maintained an apartment in midtown Manhattan which also serves as his studio and library, where he adds to his collection of books, sheet music, programs and soundtrack and cast recordings.
  • Creator:
    Hilary Knight
  • Creation Year:
    1998
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 23 in (58.42 cm)Width: 18 in (45.72 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1156210259572

More From This Seller

View All
Bless You All Tony Award Broadway Costume Design Mid 20th Century Theatre Modern
Located in New York, NY
Bless You All Tony Award Broadway Costume Design Mid 20th Century Theatre Modern. Miles White (1915 – 2000) "Bless You All," 15 x 11 (sight) inches. Mixed media on paper. The musical opened December 13, 1950 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. Miles won the 1951 Tony Award for Costume Design. Miles was one of my closest friends for the last 20 years of his life. We live with one of his two Tony Awards and a dozen drawings. BIO White was a top Broadway and Hollywood costume designer. The artist created the costumes for the original Broadway productions of OKLAHOMA, CAROUSEL, PAL JOEY and BYE BYE BIRDIE...
Category

1950s Performance Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink, Watercolor, Gouache

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" Original Broadway Set Design Mid 20th Century American
By Jo Mielziner
Located in New York, NY
Jo Mielziner (1901 – 1976) "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," 7 ½ x 11 ½ inches. Pencil on paper. Label verso from Richard Stoddard, Dated June 18. 1996. Mr. Joe W...
Category

1950s Performance Interior Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil

"Daughters of Atreus" Broadway Play Set Design Drawing American Modernism WPA
By Jo Mielziner
Located in New York, NY
"Daughters of Atreus" Broadway Play Set Design Drawing American Modernism WPA. 8 x 10 ¾ inches. Graphite on paper, 1936. Initialed on lower right. The play opens October 14, 1936 at Broadway’s 44th Street Theatre. Handwritten title, date, and signature on lower center of original matte which is now affixed to the verso. Inscription on lower right of matte reads, "For Prince & Barbara - Jo Mielziner...
Category

1930s Performance Interior Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Graphite

"My Fair Lady" 1958 West End Theatre Costume Drawing Mid 20th Century Modern
By Cecil Beaton
Located in New York, NY
"My Fair Lady" 1958 West End Theatre Costume Drawing Mid 20th Century Modern Cecil Beaton (1904 – 1980) "My Fair Lady," Pen and ink on paper. ...
Category

1950s Performance Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink, Pen

Liza Minnelli "Flora the Red Menace" Off Broadway Musical Theatrical Caricature
Located in New York, NY
Sam Norkin's original caricature of Liza Minnelli in "FLORA THE RED MENACE" Off Broadway Musical Theatrical Caricature. Published in the NY Daily News on May 9, 1965. Ink and gouache on board; dimensions: 23" x 15 1/4. Framed Samuel Norkin (1917-2011) was a Brooklyn, New York-born cartoonist who specialized in theatre caricatures for more than seven decades. His drawings of theatre, opera, ballet and film celebrities appeared in Variety, Backstage, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and many other publications. Norkin learned composition and anatomy from the muralist Mordi Gassner...
Category

1960s Performance Mixed Media

Materials

Ink, Gouache, Board

Ethel Merman "Annie Get Your Gun" original Mid Century Broadway theatre drawing
Located in New York, NY
Ethel Merman "Annie Get Your Gun" original Mid Century Broadway theatre drawing Ethel Merman in the pre-Broadway tour of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, 18 ½ ...
Category

1940s Performance Mixed Media

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Board

You May Also Like

Untitled (mama study) II
By Anastasia Pelias
Located in New Orleans, LA
ANASTASIA PELIAS was born in New Orleans, LA to Greek parents. Her artistic practice is rooted in the dual cultural identity of both her native and ancestral roots in New Orleans, LA...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Gesso, Paper, Oil Crayon, Ink, Mixed Media

Ocular Migraine- String of Pearls dark colors medical reference monochromatic
By Audrey Anastasi
Located in Brooklyn, NY
These collages were created first in the presence of a model, working quickly, in charcoal and pastel, and again, later, alone, tearing and pasting images from magazines, various lan...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Mixed Media, Archival Paper

This Week
By Audrey Anastasi
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Paper charcoal collage These collages were created first in the presence of a live model, working quickly, in charcoal and pastel, and again, later, alone in the studio, furiously te...
Category

2010s Assemblage Mixed Media

Materials

Mixed Media, Charcoal, Ink, Archival Paper, Newsprint

Eve, female, nature, animals elephant giraffe
By Audrey Anastasi
Located in Brooklyn, NY
These collages were created first in the presence of a model, working quickly, in charcoal and pastel, and again, later, alone, furiously tearing and pasting images from magazines, v...
Category

2010s American Modern Mixed Media

Materials

Mixed Media, Archival Paper

Aquatic, drawing and collage of female figure in water with text, maps, mermaid
By Audrey Anastasi
Located in Brooklyn, NY
These collages were created first in the presence of a model, working quickly, in charcoal and pastel, and again, later, alone, furiously tearing and pasting images from magazines, v...
Category

2010s Assemblage Mixed Media

Materials

Mixed Media, Archival Paper

Figure by Window, graphite, pastel, mylar, paper layered drawing, female, nude
By Audrey Anastasi
Located in Brooklyn, NY
This feminist work of a nude gazing directly at the viewer, features graphite on mylar over cut paper, aligned to amplify the forms while maintaining the delicacy of the drawing. These recently discovered 1984 oversize works on mylar and archival papers were created with a live model. The series shows the last existing observational drawings prior to the artist's switch to working with her non- dominant left hand. As a feminist, Anastasi's main focus is presenting other women. Unlike the often objectified male gaze...
Category

1980s American Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Mylar, Pastel, Mixed Media, Archival Paper

Recently Viewed

View All