44 174
63
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ROBERT W. McCAY, JR.
Self-caricature. Pen and ink with watercolor
on paper. Image of a hard-working McCay
ball-and-chained to his desk at the Monterey
Peninsula Herald while dreaming of New
York City. Signed with a cut and mounted
signature containing the cartoon head of Flip,
the clown made famous in the Little Nemo
comic strip created by his father, Winsor
McCay. Circa 1954.
[250/350]
With two Autograph Letters Signed to illustrator
AlbertT. Reid, one by Jim Merbs at the Monterey
Peninsula Herald, mentioning cartoonist Jimmy
Hatlo and “Bob” McCay’s interest in reviving
Little Nemo, the famous character his father
created based on him. 9 December 1948; another
TLS by McCay to Reid, discussing original
works of his father,Winsor, that were donated to
the University of Kansas, mentioning Merbs and
gushing with admiration for Reid. 14 March,
1954.A third small TLS by Merbs to a Mr. Conrow, asking him to pass along a drawing (implying
that being sold in this lot). 20April, 1949.This and the first on Monterey Peninsula Herald letterhead.
“DO IT” FORYOUR COUNTRY
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●
WALT KUHN.
“Race by Suicide,T. R.” Pen and ink with pencil on paper. 210x421 mm; 8
1
/
4
x16
3
/
4
inches,
image. Signed in image, lower right. Matted and framed. Verso contains stamps from
Illustration House, Inc. South Norwalk CT and that of the Brandywine River Museum,
Chadds Ford, PA. to whom it was loaned for their 1988 exhibition “Masters of the Pen.”
Circa 1905.
[800/1,200]
Kuhn made his living as an illustrator and cartoonist prior to his becoming known as an importantAmerican
modernist painter.This political cartoon showing haughty pelicans holding a scroll that says “Race by
Suicide” to a nervous female bird refers toTheodore Roosevelt’s speech “On American Motherhood.” In it,
he expressed his fear of rising white American infertility and that the use of birth control or failure to keep
up with the birth rate of ethnic minorities was to risk “race suicide.” Pressure was put upon white Anglo-
Saxon Protestant women to procreate because birth control was considered unpatriotic.
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