Fifteen Hand-Colored Holiday Cards with Art by Legendary New Yorker Artist Al Frueh

FRUEH, Al (Alfred)

Published by Publication Date: 1950

Fifteen different hand-colored holiday cards by artist Al Frueh, dates range from 1921 thru 1950, with most from the 1920s and 30s. Various sizes and formats, from small cards to broadsides that have been folded to be mailed. Paper on verso of some are a bit skinned from having been mounted in an album, but all are otherwise very good or better. Several have been mailed, all addressed to the Bode family. Each of the cards appears to be a woodcut print with hand-coloring by Frueh. Subjects range from traditional holiday themes: stockings hung from the mantelpiece, wreaths, angels. etc. to more topical subjects such as a play on the WPA logo ("G&A Frueh: We Do Our Stuff"), Hitler and Mussolini (for 1937; "Heilee, Heilo from Al Hitler and Giuliette Mussolini"), Frueh and his wife are pictured as monkeys picking bugs off of each other (for 1925, the year of the Scopes Monkey Trial), and in 1922 an image of Santa Claus in a Klan outfit from "The Frueh Klux Klan." The Ohio-born Frueh was an artist and caricaturist who was a contributor to the inaugural issue of *The New Yorker*, and drew the cover for the second issue. He remained on the staff for more than half of a century. His specialty was the Broadway and entertainment scene and he was the direct precursor to caricaturist and Broadway chronicler Al Hirschfeld. A particularly pleasing group of holiday cards by a unique and amusing artist. Seller Inventory # 400347

Bibliographic Details

Title: Fifteen Hand-Colored Holiday Cards with Art ...
Publication Date: 1950
Binding: Unbound
Condition: Very Good