Lot 75: ELIOT, THOMAS STEARNS (1888-1965, poet and literary critic)

PORTRAIT BY OSCAR BERGER (1901-1997), SIGNED BY ELIOT AND BY BERGER, 'caricature', crayon on paper, half-length, framed and glazed, size of image 14 x 10 inches (35 x 25 cm), overall size 22 x 17 inches (57 x 45 cm), no date

ANY PORTRAITS OF ELIOT OTHER THAN PHOTOGRAPHS ARE RARE; this is the only one to which he is known to have given his imprimatur by signing the image. It appears to be unrecorded.

Oscar Berger (1901-1997), caricaturist and cartoonist, was born in Prague and studied in Paris and Berlin. He was one of the few journalists admitted to the 1923 Munich trial that followed Hitler's abortive putsch. Having annoyed Hitler he settled in London in 1935 and worked for the Daily Telegraph; his work also appeared in Life, The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. His caricatures have been described as 'kindly rather than critical, mildly satirical but never vicious. They aim to entertain, to identify a sitter so unmistakably that a few telling lines will be telegraphed at a glance.'