Monthly Archives: November 2017

Art for Sale at Chris Beetles in London: Charles Dana Gibson Political Drawing from 1887

This drawing is currently for sale at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London.  The gallery is about to have their annual British Art of Illustration sale.

http://www.chrisbeetles.com/gallery/american/political-nightmare.html

POLITICAL-NIGHTMARE-1-P0282

“Political Nightmare”

Price £1,750.00

SIGNED
PEN AND INK
12 X 17 1/2 INCHES
PROVENANCE: THE JEFFREY ARCHER POLITICAL CARTOON COLLECTION
EXHIBITED: ‘THE AMERICANS ARE COMING’, 5-30 MAY 2015;
‘THE ILLUSTRATORS. THE BRITISH ART OF ILLUSTRATION
1880-2017’, NOVEMBER 2017-JANUARY 2018, NO 84

The above illustration appeared in May 14, 1887 edition of Tid-Bits, a weekly humor magazine:

Gibson-Grover1

Grover Cleveland was the 22nd President of the United States, from 1885 to 1889.  He would indeed lose the 1888 election for his second term but he was re-elected in 1893 as the 24th President.  He was the only President to serve two terms non-consecutively.

Early in his career and before the “Gibson Girl”, Charles Dana Gibson often drew political cartoons for both Life and Tid-Bits magazines:

othercover

 

These cartoons were both drawn before he was twenty years old.  Compared to the drawing below which dates to about ten years later, his style during the early late 1880s/early 1890s was tighter and less fluid.Gibson Girl