Location:various character sketches Title: Don Flowers "Newlyweds"* Artist:Don Flowers (All)
Media Type: Pen and Ink Art Type: Interior Page For Sale Status: NFS Views: 4261 Likes on CAF:01 Comments:0 Added to Site: 3/15/2011
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Description
I met Don Flowers son (Don Jr.) at Emerald City Comic Con a few years back and have admired his dad's work every chance I get to look at it. This original Don Flowers piece I fell in love with the first time I saw it. It was in a book collection called "Standing on Ceremony" and I asked if it was available for sale. He unfortunately had not brought this piece with him, but thought for sure that he still had it at his house. After the convention was over, we emailed back and forth about it and he sent me the following information regarding it: "I checked my archive and I do have it, but in finding it, I remembered what's unique about its provenance. Though in the "Standing on Ceremony" book it was formatted like the rest of the cartoons (typeset gag line under the visual, in the style of the daily panels such as the one you bought last year), this one was actually cut out of a Sunday page, and the gag line is inside a talk ballon (my dad's balloons were always rectangular) coming from the mouth of the groom. The piece is 9 1/2" square, and would frame very nicely. However, since I don't have the rest of the Sunday page from which it was cut, I can't date it precisely, as it has no King Features copyright strip. Nor does it bear my dad's signature (which on the Sundays was always at the top of the page). However, from the drawing style I know beyond a doubt that it dates from the mid fifties, most likely between 1955 or 1956 (the body proportions and hairstyle of the bride are the "tells".) The cartoon came into my hands a few years ago in a rather unusual way. Back in the early 60's an old friend of my mother's was getting married for the first time, and my mom persuaded my dad to make the couple a gift of a wedding-themed cartoon. Rather than draw something original for the occasion, he razored an appropriate gag (this one) from an old Sunday page. I never knew this had happened until the lady (by then a widow) died several years ago and my wife and I were charged with being the executors of her Will and Estate. This cartoon was among the items we inherited (apparently it had never been framed), and I included it in the "Standing on Ceremony" collection." So not only is this an original Don Flowers, but it also has quite a bit of a history with it. I wasn't able to get it at the time, but he brought it with him to this year's ECCC for me and I purchased it from him then.