Illustrated Memoirs of a Quick-Change Artist, #47
1973: One of the last big jobs completed before my partner and I broke up house-keeping in August 1973 was a portfolio of seven 17″h x 22″w plates printed in monotone for Elegance, one of the Merchandising Group’s clients. Each illustrated tableau comprised an average of eight figures. Last Christmas I sold one of the seven plates to a friend; my first sale, in the present, of work that old — fashion illustrations done forty years ago.
Not only did my friend buy an impressively large piece for his wife last Christmas, he purchased two smaller pieces 8-1/2″ x 11″ each, that I had created for Tric-Trac (see https://consciousworldart.com/free-lancing-for-trictrac/). At the time, I neglected to scan any of the three artworks sold; the sale was unexpected, I hadn’t yet come up with the idea of writing an autobiography, so cataloging the work didn’t seem particularly important. Then a couple weeks ago a family member purchased the Wool Bureau color printed piece featured on July 11th. That was the fourth sale of fashion illustration work from the 70s; work that I have undervalued until recently, when the evolution of this autobiography and encouraging comments from friends convinced me to look at this early work “with new eyes.” So last week I borrowed the artworks back, since they hadn’t been framed yet and were easy to scan. Evaluating the Egyptianesque style and the medium used – felt-tipped markers in various percentages of gray – I deduce that these two pieces were possibly the last fashion illustrations commissioned and completed, probably late ’73, possibly early ’74, when I was in the midst of a career change. Next installment: one last fashionable hurrah!
Needless to say, I’m thrilled about these first sales of old work that I’ve been reviewing over the past few months in this memoir. I’m hoping these unexpected sales start a trend. Interested? let me know.
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