On December 5, 2008 and January 9, 2009, I posted images of two pieces of original Edward Gorey artwork in my collection that were published in Friends Magazine. At the time, I mentioned that I was not sure which specific issues of the magazine these images appeared in. Recently, another collector of the works of Mr. Gorey provided me with scans and dates of the magazines in which the art appears.
According to their records, Edward Gorey produced images for twelve different issues of Friends Magazine between 1961 and 1965, but there may be more yet to find. The first of the two pieces of art I have is titled Departing Train(see image above) and was published in the July 1962 issue of the magazine. This remains one of my top five favorite pieces of original art by Mr. Gorey in my collection.
The second piece of Friends art, Boy With Dog Chasing Butterfly, was published in the January 1963 issue of the magazine. This wonderful image illustrates an amusing article about animals who do not let their human companions tell them what to do. The difference between the humans in the photos and the boy in the drawing is that the boy appears to be enjoying his situation thoroughly!
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Hi, this is a fairly random question, but on some original artwork of Gorey's I've seen what appears to be a copyright stamp that looks like (c) Edward Gorey. Do you happen to know under what circumstances he would use this stamp?
Thanks!
For a time, Gotham Book Mart would add the copyright on original artwork they sold. I have a couple pieces where it was hand written by a GBM employee - usually Gina - somewhere on the piece (front or back), and her handwriting can be confused with a stamp. I know I have also seen a rubber stamped copyright occasionally on pieces.
As computers and the internet became prevalent, Gotham took a more aggressive stance marking the copyright on images before they sold them.
Interesting, thanks. So essentially the copyright mark is indicative that it was sold through Gotham Book Mart, and not say, given personally.
Thanks!
Edward rarely took care of these kinds of things himself. He usually did not even sign original art that was sent off for publication, unless it was a signature which was incorporated into the drawing itself.
My "Friends" pieces are unsigned because he gave them to the art director and never got them back originally. When GBM acquired the pieces from the AD's estate, they were not sent to EG to be signed - Sending things to EG for signing could take a very, very long time unless someone was driving to visit EG with the drawings and books and would bring them back right away. EG was known to leave boxes sitting on his porch until he felt like bringing them into the house and dealing with the contents.
Thanks for the information -- this all stems from the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair this weekend, where a vendor had some original drawings they said were for sketches of the Nantucket Dracula stage design. They even had a hand painted carpet they said was part of the production along with a drawing of the carpet -- unfortunately I couldn't find the carpet in any of the pictures you posted of the nantucket stage production!
Still quite interesting and unusual pieces.
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