NEW YORK, NY.- Swann Galleries’ December 4 sale of Illustration Art was filled with delightful works from house favorites. The offering included an exceptional range of works, from Golden Age masters to the trailblazers of alternative comics, culminating in several standout results that reinforced collectors’ passion for the category’s best makers.

“A spirited bidding battle erupted over Théophile Steinlen’s lively cat cartoon for Le Chat Noir, driving the final price over the high estimate. A dynamic oil painting by Bernie Fuchs achieved a new auction record for the artist, exemplifying the bold, experimental period in which he pushed the boundaries of design, color, and brushwork. The sale also featured a unique stage prop embellished with original drawings by underground comic artist Robert Crumb, showcasing some of his most iconic and irreverent characters,” noted specialist Skye Lacerte, of the top offerings.

Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen’s original 1884 pen-and-ink illustration, L’epouvantable sinistre du Quartier Latin / The terrible disaster in the Latin Quarter, published in Le Chat Noir, No. 127. The work brought about intense bidding, earning $35,560. Also of note was Norman Rockwell’s 1918 oil-on-canvas work, “Out of the blackness Wolf launched himself, straight for the trespasser’s throat,“ created for Wolf by Albert Payson Tehrune, published in St. Nicholas magazine, which sold for $33,020; and Charles Addams’ 1947 ink study for Movie Scream, published in The New Yorker, at $9,525 (the final illustration for Movie Scream sold at Swann in December 2017 for $31,200); James Montgomery Flagg’s 1920 watercolor, Dean Cornwell in his studio, published in Architectural Digest, brought $6,350; and Julian de Miskey’s circa-1930 unpublished cover art submission for The New Yorker, Equestrian Riding Across 5th Avenue, at $3,810.

Works created for children’s literature and by iconic children’s illustrators were prominent among the top 20 lots of the sale. Notable lots included a group of 15 graphite-and-watercolor illustrations (the complete book) for Jerry Pinkney’s The Great Minu, 1974, which sold for $10,160; Arnold Lobel’s preliminary sketch for an interior illustration for Frog and Toad All Year, 1976, at $5,016; Edmund Dulac’s interior watercolor illustration for Lyrics Pathetic & Humorous from A to Z, “Q was a quaint dainty queen,” 1906, at $11,430; and an unused title page illustration for Gorky Rises, circa 1980, by William Steig, at $4,572. Also on offer were works by Maurice Sendak, Ludwig Bemelmans, William Pène du Bois, Jane Breskin, and Garth Williams.

Theater illustrations included an illustrated stage prop by Robert Crumb from R. Crumb Comix, 1990, at $12,540; Albert Hirschfeld's New York Times illustration for the opening night of Camelot on Broadway, published in November 1960, at $6,604; and Boris Solomonovich Aronson's watercolor and gouache illustration for Scene 5 in The Country Girl, 1950, at $4,064. Original comic strips were led by Stephen Pastis' Pearls Before Swine, 2007, after Charles Schulz' Peanuts, which earned $4,825, and fashion by René Gruau's Homme en blanc et noir, oil on canvas, 1978, at $7,920.