GROTH, John (1908-1988)

Original cartoon illustration, Untitled, ca 1940

[ca 1940]. Original cartoon illustration in black ink with blue pencil highlights on artist board; sheet size 36.5cm x 43.5cm (ca 14-1/2" x 17-1/4"). Together with printer's proof of finished cartoon, ca. 24cm x 20cm on glossy paper. Signed in ink lower right. Drawing spotted and lightly soiled; artist's directions to the engraver scrawled at upper left ("please do not disturb the len [?] day - shoot as is"); white ink highlights to center of image; Very Good.

A caricature showing the four Axis leaders -- Hitler, Franco, Hirohito and Mussolini -- preparing to toast each other as the clock nears midnight. The clock's minute hand is depicted as a bloody sabre, and Franco and Mussolini's uniforms are shown covered with bloody handprints. Judging from the proof, the cartoon was obviously published -- probably either in the pages of Esquire or The New Yorker, two periodicals which regularly featured Groth's work during this period. Groth began his career as a printmaker and cartoonist very much in the social-realist mold, publishing some of his earliest work in such left-wing forums as The New Masses and PM. He was also the first Art Director at Esquire, which was founded in 1933. Groth's mastery as a printmaker is on display in these early works, which manage to convey a simultaneous sense of urgency and delicacy which would become the hallmark of his battlefield sketches made during WW2 and the Korean War.

Price: $500.00

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