Jan 2, 2007

A Mary Blair Christmas in Gouache


Click to enlarge. Sorry about the very slight cutoff at the top and right--the old scanner trouble, you know; maybe this year I'll finally get a larger one

This was supposed to go up on the blog Christmas Eve, but I couldn't find it. The original painting, which I bought from Grim Natwick's estate sale at Howard Lowery's for all of 300 dollars, used to hang year-round over my mantle. It was the best thing I owned; next-best being the two Fred Moore unsigned watercolor drawings I've posted here before. Who knows exactly what this was done for--a Christmas card? A stand-alone painting? Some other commissioned design project? Whatever its purpose, it's absolutely gorgeous.

What you see posted here I was finally able to locate in the Blackwing archives this afternoon: a laser copy of the original--which I am both sorry and happy to say I sold to a highly worthy person. Happy, because I knew that this would be treasured just as much as ever by its new owner; sorry, because--well, who would ever want to sell such a painting? But at the time I had to part with it.
In 1997 while still in my collection it was part of a gallery show of Mary Blair's work--the largest show to date that I know of. I was ineffably happy and so proud to see the little card with my name alongside this beautful painting. Nada mas!

Enjoy!



8 comments:

mark kennedy said...

good grief, you are an endless source of wonderful surprises!

Thanks for posting that, it's really amazing.

Ward Jenkins said...

This is great, Jenny! I love it. Thanks for sharing it with us, and thank for submitting it to my Retro Kid group!

You know, Jenny, if you scan the top and right side separately, send those sections to me and I can work my Photoshop magic and put it together all nice and fine for ya. A good deal of my scans are done this way because I have a small scanbed and am forced to cut and paste together many of my books (like the First Noel one I recently posted).

And I do hope the current owner loves this piece just as much as you do!

fabiopower said...

Hi J! …I was who recommended that film "The Fearless Vampire Killers"i n the Kalie's blog… not you it liked this film? then to me it seems to me very funny!
Greetings from Chile,
the ass of the world
Fabio
POWER
ps: Nice drawings!

Rusty Mills said...

I remember going to that Mary Blair show with you and Eddie Fitz, and several other people. Thanks for posting it!

william wray said...

Nice. Great to see anohter one I haven't seen. Never heard about that show sadly...

samacleod said...

So charming, serously, so cool.

Fred Cline said...

Thanks for that posting. I have posted a 1950's Meadow Gold ice cream TV ad (quicktime) on my blog. It's designed by Mary in the style of her "I Can Fly" book illustrations.
Go to:
www.fredcline.blogspot.com

Hobo Divine said...

Hi Jenny!

Such a beautiful card!
I heard a rumour that Mary would sometimes use paper stencils in her work. Do you know if this was true?

She is one of my favorite artists.

(thank you for posting)

~ Hobo