Lot 1642: Hardie Gramatky Original Illustration Artwork (3)

Both of these works are attributed to Hardie Gramatky, but only the black and white work is signed. Gramatky (1907 - 1979) was born in Texas but grew up in the area around San Gabriel, California. After attending Stanford and the Chouinard Art School, Gramatky entered the cartooning field, working as a ghost on several syndicated strips. He soon found work in the Disney animation department where he worked for six years, both on the studio's cartoons and on the Disney animated features and shorts. The artist became involved in watercolor work around this time. Today he is recognized as one of the most important artists of the California School of watercolor painting. But during all of this, Gramatky managed to produce a healthy body of illustration work, even to the point of developing a second career as a children's book illustrator. By this time Gramatky had already moved to the east coast where he would live out the last 32 years of his life in Connecticut, contributing water color works to west coast shows and producing illustrations for many clients until his final days. Includes: 1) an unsigned and undated, 19-1/8" x 18-1/8", gouache on board cover painting of a farmer who is demonstrating a proper military salute to his three kids and their various farm yard pets and a puppy. The use of the work is unknown, but editorial notations in the margin make it clear that it is an illustration for the cover of some unknown booklet. This graphic has a strong central image area that is surrounded by bands of heavy dust shadow and some glue stains from a former matting, all of which appear beyond the indicated crop lines that outline the 11-1/8" x 10-1/2" indicated area of the image. (The actual painting exceeds these measured dimensions substantially in every direction, but it is obvious that the art director desired a tighter focus for his cover.) Re-matting the painting using the original guide lines will produce a very clean and appealing viewable central image area. 2) 9-5/16" by 13-1/8" mixed media work on board from a story called "Red Feather" (watercolor, white poster paint and ink; probably done for a volume of The Children's Hour) that resembles an ink wash piece. Gramatky has pictured a small Asian boy rising out of the water at the aft of a Chinese junk, as numerous other boats are anchored nearby. The boy is brandishing what appears to be a long feather toward a group of sleeping Chinese men. It is a wonderful work, unblemished with the exception of an inverted "V" of light pencil line above the rear of the foremost ship. The painting is signed in the lower right corner and matted to reveal a 7" x 10-1/2" image area. 3) GD/VG copy of The Children's Hour V.16, which includes Gramatky illustrations for one of its science fiction tales.