Swann Auction Galleries in New York City held their semiannual Illustration Art Auction on Thursday December 16th. The sale was memorable for the variety and quality of the artwork offered. It also set two new artist auction sale price records.
The 7 3/8" x 9 1/4" black and white image (on a 9 1/4" x 11 1/4" sheet) depicting all manner of demons from Hell has an imaginative nightmare quality not often found in Edward Gorey's works. The writhing beasties bare their teeth and claws at one another while fixing their burning eyes on the viewer. The lyrical elegance of the original black and white artwork was somewhat diminished in the final book jacket design due to the addition of a fiery background and masses of blocky white type crowding amongst the creatures.
The Beast's $27,500.00 sale price (hammer price plus buyer's premium) beat the previous record of $22,500.00 (hammer price plus buyer's premium) for a pair of theater drawings sold at Swann in July 2020.
Along with three other works by Edward Gorey offered at the December 16, 2020 Swann auction, The
Dark Beasts was consigned by The Edward Gorey Charitable
Trust and proceeds from the sale will benefit the Trust's charitable mission
statement.
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1 comment:
Thank you, Irwin! Those “foul Small Creatures” brought no small foul figure. Thank you also for making the HC stylistic connection for readers. We were delighted to work with the EGC Trust again and thrilled that the sale of these artworks will help continue to support Gorey’s causes.
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