52 Original Dick & Jane Style Children's Book Watercolors Depicting Four Separate Story Lines
NP: NP. Original artwork. Loose leaf. Original watercolors (10 1/4 x 14 3/8") housed in archival plastic sleeves of two black plastic portfolios. This collection of watercolors, much like in the famous Dick and Jane* series, are designed to help young readers to understand the story. Thirty-two of these watercolors contain identifiers common in design and printing processes, incl. notes like "For Book Designers."
Popular in the 1930s through the 1960s the Dick and Jane series were published by Scott Forseman. The illustrators were Miriam Story Hurford (1930s), Eleanor B. Campbell & Keith Ward (1940s), Robert Childress (1950s), and Richard Henderson Wiley (1960s). The popularity of the series prompted Ginn and Company to release "David and Ann," Harper and Row published "Janet and Mark," the latter with illustrators Mabel O'Donnell and Beatrice Darwin. The primers were intended for nationwide distribution. Therefore text and illustrations lacked references to specific regional geographical features by design. The content of these series adapted to changes in perception of roles in society along the way.
Research to identify the artist(s) for these four stories produced several names as potential originators for this set. Among them the British illustrator Cecil Aldin, the American artist David Rogers, and Francis Tipton Hunter, known mostly for her covers for The Saturday Evening Post, a widely distributed and influential magazine among the American middle class.
The 52 watercolors are comprised of four sequences and one plate with a portrait of the children: 10 watercolors depict a makeshift store setup of the girl with her brother arriving in a fireman outfit pulling a prank on his sister, extinguishing the non-existing fire; 16 watercolors depict preparations for a train ride of the young boy and girl and their cat in the family circle at home. The cat is put into a box with air holes for the journey. When the boy and girl are on the train the cat gets away wreaking havoc in the passenger compartment; 8 watercolors depict the two youngsters with their dog during a day at the beach, and 17 watercolors depict the youngsters with their dog playing ball during an excursion to a lake. A total of 32 of these watercolors are marked with penciled numbers, at times with text, e.g. "For Book Designer." Very good+ to fine condition. Item #55688
* The texts and illustrations for the Dick and Jane primers were intended to help young readers understand the story. The texts introduced a repetitive pattern of words; the illustrations provide visual reinforcements to help convey the meaning of the words.
Price: $5,250.00