[ENTERTAINMENT.]
36 caricatures of theatrical personalities by Ruth H. Aarons, pencil and charcoal, each 160 x 120 mm, 1930s and 40s, all inscribed with personal messages by the subjects, occasional smudging.
Ruth Hughes Aarons [1910-1980] was the daughter of theatre manager and composer Alfred E. Aarons, and a noted table-tennis player in her own right. She performed ping-pong displays in venues such as the Rainbow Room, and it was presumably there that she sketched her subjects, including actresses Zita Johann (The Mummy), Portia Nelson (Sister Berthe in The Sound of Music), Ruth Heston, Gale Sondergaard, Irene Rich, and Erin O'Brien-Moore, actors Kenneth Harlan and Hal Skelly (The Ghost Writer), magicians Jose Frakson, Howard Thurston, and Paul Rosini, dancers Dale Winthrop, Don Julian and Marjorie, and Ruth Miles and Edward Kover, singers Nita Carol, Mildren Monson, Durelle Alexander, and Diana Ward, radio personality Martha Deane, pianist Evalyn Tyner, comedian Henny Youngman, jazz orchestra leader George Olsen, and composer Walter O'Keefe (The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze).