Lot 3059: BOOTH, GEORGE.

29 original illustrations on paper, in pen, ink, wash, and colored marker. Together with an Autograph Letter (unsigned) and an Autograph Note Signed, both to Henry Morgan; 2 books co-authored by Henry Morgan; and 5 signed reproductions. 3 1/2 x 4 inches to 12 x 10 inches. Some mounted on illustration board, some matted, some framed. General wear, including offsetting from glue, text overlay losses, tape, and small tears. A group of original sketches, finished drawings, letters, and books by the esteemed New Yorker cartoonist, including several illustrations published in the New Yorker from 1972 to 1978. Booth's style, characterized by rumpled, harried Everymen (and equally rumpled cats and bull terriers) trying to cope with the perplexing intricacies of modern life, has become one of the most recognizable visual signatures of the magazine. Booth created his first cartoons while serving in the Marines in WWII, as a staff cartoonist for the Corp's Leatherneck magazine. In civilian life he worked an unhappy stint as art director for a New York magazine. Disenchanted, he quit and decided to pursue cartooning, eventually finding a berth at the New Yorker . While under the tutelage of legendary editor William Shawn, Booth learned the value of a rougher, less polished style of cartooning which would preserve the sponteneity of his ideas. As Booth later recalled, "Shawn could see the value in my work early on. He saw value in my loose roughs. Sometimes he'd say, 'Just print the roughs.' My attitude at the time was, I can always do better. But sometimes a rough had so much feeling in it ... that you almost can't repeat it by doing a finish. You stiffen up. So he made me aware of that." Perhaps as a result of Shawn's influence, Booth became a virtuoso of collage, cutting choice bits from his roughs and splicing them into his finished drafts, in order to combine spontaneous expression with a more polished feel. Several of the cartoons in this lot aptly demonstrate Booth's facility at cut-and-paste technique, with surfaces that are a wonder of tactile richness, incorporating every stage of artistic development from draft to finished illustration. See illustration .