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Lot 120

STEIG, WILLIAM. 1907-2003.
52 original pen-and-ink drawings plus one signed photostat of the jacket drawing for Till Death Do Us Part,

5 December 2019, 10:00 EST
New York

Sold for US$7,575 inc. premium

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STEIG, WILLIAM. 1907-2003.

52 original pen-and-ink drawings plus one signed photostat of the jacket drawing for Till Death Do Us Part, 140 x 120 mm each, each drawing captioned and signed in ink ("Wm. Steig") and one labeled on verso of mount ("William Steig R. D. 2 Cream Ridge N. J."), all but the stat mounted on heavy colored paper and many with overlays, some printer's marks and a few mounts damaged.
Published: Till Death Do Us Part: Some Ballet Notes on Marriage, New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1947.
Provenance: William Steig, the artist; by descent.


William Steig's masterwork on the Battle of the Sexes. Picasso's influence is evident on these little depictions of the clichés of love, and Steig's witty drawings look forward to Tomi Ungerer's The Underground Sketchbook (1964). The dexterous line drawings are often amusing and at other times sardonic. The verso of the mount of "Meet the Wife" is rubberstamped "N. Y. Times." When the Times devoted a double-page spread to Steig's drawings of "Marriage" on February 23, 1947, book reviewer Charles Poore asked him his attitude toward the institution. "I like it," he replied. "I'm glad to endorse it." Apparently he did: he married four times.

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