A blog about Frank Godwin and his art

Not long ago, I said that on December 20 I might post an item that appeared in the Sunday, December 20, 1925, magazine section of the Public Ledger. That would be pretty precisely a hundred years after its first appearance. (I suppose that the Sunday edition might have been for sale on Saturday, but let’s ignore such issues at the moment.)

I decided to post it a few days early. This shows the entire image, and then two smaller portions. In the main image, the material at the left is the newspaper page facing the magazine-section cover. (The item is in a bound volume.)

—Tom Sawyer

December 16, 2025

Not long after the 1978 appearance of the Hyperion reprint of early Connie daily strips, Don and Maggie Thompson indicated (in their “Beautiful Balloons” column) that something was missing from the book. A while back (I think maybe two years ago), I spent considerable time trying to figure out “what’s what” in connection with that book.

I made quite a few notes at that time, but I looked at them during the past few days, and they are not always as clear as they could have been. Over the past several days, though, I have looked through the book more or less “anew,” and I thought I would create this post to set forth a few observations, based on my earlier notes and my recent checking.

Designations on the Strips

The following appear to be the basic designations of the strips (as printed in the strips), regarding the dates (or other information from which the basic appearance-dates might be determined).

Some of the strips in the Hyperion book were marked with numbers, like 44 or 92, which represent their place in the opening sequence of strips. This numbering was used in many places in the first 114 strips, but there were also many that either had no number, or had numbers that were pretty much illegible.

Others have a letter and a number, or a number and a letter. Examples: B-10, 12-E.

Still others are marked with dates, for example 5-17.

Overall, the designations are highly fragmented, or perhaps chaotic would be a better word. My impression is that the strips that have clear designations are in a minority.

Sequence Problems

The strips on pages 55 and 56 appear to be somewhat jumbled. They should be in this sequence:

106, 107, 108, 109

Instead, as far as I can tell, their sequence in the book appears to be as follow:

106, 109, 108, 107

Page 76 has what I presume are strips 110 and 111, but they seem to me to be printed in a sequence of 111, 110.

General Observations

The strips in the book appear on pages 3 through 161, which equals 159 pages. With the exception of page 161, which shows one strip, there are two strips per page. This means there are 317 strips reproduced in the book.

The actual “official” starting date of the daily strips was March 11, 1929, as demonstrated in Allan Holtz’s blog. At the time the book was published, however, this had not been established.

The first strip in the Hyperion book was the March 11, 1929, strip. The final strip in the book, based on dates stated within relevant strips, was May 17, 1930.

The first year of the strip was March 11, 1929, through March 10, 1930. That means 313 daily strips for the first year.

But the final strip in the book was May 17, 1930. So, the strips actually cover (incompletely) the period of March 11, 1929, through May 17, 1930.

The following is tentative. There may be inaccuracies, but it is my working framework for the general content of the book.

Pages 3 through 61 include 59 pages of strips. All of those are part of the same numerical sequence, though many are unnumbered, or have illegible numbers. Nonetheless, it is pretty clear that strip number 114 (which itself is unnumbered) is at the top of page 59. That means that one strip is missing, since the 114th strip should appear at the bottom of page 59, not the top. I suspect that the missing strip is the one for July 3, 1929, since the relevant OSU catalog seems to indicate that the July 3 strip is missing from the OSU collection.

That covers the first 19 weeks of the strip (with six strips per week). The ideal starting date for the strip is March 11 (the earliest date it was published, but often a paper would run the first strip at a later date). So those 114 strips cover the period of March 11, 1929, through and including July 20, 1929.

After (unnumbered) strip number 114 are the following sequences:

B (12 strips)

C (12 strips)

D (12 strips)

E (12 strips)

F (6 strips)

Strip F-6 (apparently the July 20, 1929, strip) is at the top of page 86. There the story is interrupted, so the F series must have continued after that.

Those quantities of strips (12, 12, 12, 12, and 6) bring us up to and including September 21, 1929.

After that (bottom of page 86) is the strip for November 25, 1929. From there, the series is complete and reasonably straightforward, up to and including May 17, 1930.

If the foregoing is basically accurate, then the Hyperion book is missing 9 weeks of strips for the period September 23, 1929, through November 23, 1929. At 6 strips per week, that’s 54 strips. Also, as noted above, it looks to me as though one other strip is missing, and that would bring the total to 55. On the plus side, the book does include a lot of strips beyond the first year. Based on the OSU catalog, it’s pretty certain that the daily strip continued into 1940, and possibly into 1941, but in these situations, it is occasionally hard to draw firm conclusions from the OSU Connie catalog-entries.

Summary

In summary, there are 317 strips in the book. This is made up of:

113 strips out of the first 114 strips (one strip missing), beginning with the March 11, 1929, first daily-strip.

54 strips from the B, C, D, E, and F strips.

150 strips for November 25, 1929, through May 17, 1930.

How did this happen?

One might wonder how this whole situation came about. Maurice Horn, who was probably the first comic-strip historian to promote the Connie strip extensively, wrote the introduction. I do not know who assembled the strips, but since Bill Blackbeard was stated to be the Series Editor, I tend to assume that the strips were provided by him. The OSU catalog shows that the earliest Connie daily OSU possesses (from the former Blackbeard collection) was May 13, 1929 (presumably the strip that originally appeared on March 11, 1929).

It is as though the compiler took the May 17, 1930, strip and worked backward, thinking that those completed the first year (or nearly so, since May 17 was the first Saturday after May 12, 1929, which would have been the end of the first year if that year had actually started on May 13, 1929). Then they worked forward from May 13, 1929 (from the Blackbird collection), until they basically filled out the year.

Whether that is the explanation, I don’t know, and I kinda doubt we will ever know.

—Tom Sawyer

November 27, 2025

Several posts back, I showed a detail from a beautiful oil painting by Frank Godwin, circa 1919. Here is another image based on the same oil painting. There is at least one reproduction of the entire painting on the internet, which shouldn’t be too difficult to locate. (Or, rather, it is an image of a printed version of the painting. The printed version appeared in a calendar for the year 1920.)

—Tom Sawyer

November 11, 2025

Frank Godwin created many cover illustrations for the magazine section of the Sunday Public Ledger. A lot of these (possibly all of them) were syndicated, and they can be seen in other newspapers as well. An eBay dealer (Comicstrips) now has a half-dozen examples for sale, in addition to quite a few other Godwin items.

As I mentioned in my most recent post, and as I will probably mention frequently, I’m now working on another book about Godwin. In the forthcoming book, I’ll probably reproduce the cover shown below. It’s definitely one of my favorites. (But I doubt if I will show it in color.)

I have posted images of several other Sunday magazine-section covers on the Facebook page called “The Art of Frank Godwin.”

The image below shows a cover that is in a bound volume of the Sunday Public Ledger. At the upper left, you can see a small portion of the page that faces the cover. This is from the issue dated October 11, 1925, so it is just a little more than one hundred years old.

I have one dated December 20, 1925, so (God willing) maybe I’ll post that on December 20, this year, one century after the date shown in the newspaper. (I said “God willing” without any levity, because recent events have driven home something that I already knew: God sometimes brings about events that cannot be predicted.)

—Tom Sawyer

November 10, 2025

I am now engaged in putting together another book on Frank Godwin. This book will be a follow-up to my 2018 book on Godwin, which is titled Early Frank Godwin. I also intend to reissue that book. Even if I do say so myself, it included a lot of arcane information about Godwin, and it included many details on his early comic strip that was generally called The Dreams of Pipe, the Fan. That was a  baseball strip, wonderfully surreal, along the lines of Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.

I expect the new book to include material from this blog, as well as material I have not published before. One of the things I’ll probably deal with in the book is the contest discussed below.

The “clipping” below is from the Utica Daily Press, Friday, March 29, 1929 (in a digitized version on the fultonhistory.com website). For a time, that paper ran a contest that it called “The Greatest Game Since Cross-Word Puzzles.” The idea was that the paper would place blank spaces in certain word-balloons. Readers would submit their suggested wording. The strips involved were Connie, Winnie Winkle, and Reglar Fellers. For the Connie strip, the blank spaces appeared on Tuesdays and Fridays. These details are from the March 26, 1929, issue (from the same website, fultonhistory.com). I haven’t determined how long the contests lasted, but I think they may have continued for about a month.

Plainly, that is a terrible image. The following is a better image, from a different paper (and from a different date, since the two papers were not running the strip on the same dates). This is also from the fultonhistory.com website. It includes the “missing” wording from the third panel. 

—Tom Sawyer

November 9, 2025

I have often wondered exactly how many Connie Sunday-strips were distributed by the Ledger Syndicate. Well, now that I think of it, there may have been multiple arms of Ledger operations that distributed the strip. But, in general, how many Connie Sunday-strips were distributed by Ledger, speaking simply. This is a question that I don’t think I have ever seen stated (or answered). I know I have never taken the effort to make any relevant calculations—until now!

Well, the first Sunday strip was the one for April 28, 1929. There were 35 Sundays that year, after April 28. That means There were 36 Sundays with Connie strips.

We know that the strip ran through the entire period of 1930 through 1940. According to Google’s AI, 9 of those years had 52 Sundays, and 2 of those years had 53 Sundays. So, for those years (1930-1940), there were 468 Sundays plus 106 Sundays. That’s 574 Sundays. (Or you could multiply 11 times 52, getting 572, and then add 2 for the two years with 53 Sundays.)

Doing a little addition, we add 36 (for 1929) to 574 (for 1930 through 1940), and we arrive at 610, the total number of Connie Sunday strips for the period 1929 through the end of 1940.

We know that there was at least one Connie Sunday in 1941 (January 5, 1941). That makes a confirmed total of 611 Sunday strips.

Now before we carry this any further, I should remind you that during the final strips of that 610 (the final  two, at least, and perhaps one or two strips before that), Godwin’s role in the Connie strip was reduced (or perhaps non-existent). I’ve discussed his likely role in the final strips extensively elsewhere on this blog.

All right, then. Here is where things really get interesting (or confusing, or puzzling). My principal sources of information on what you might call “the end of the Sunday Connie comic-strip” are as follows:

The blog called ‘The Comic Strip Appreciation” group. Link:

https://comicstripappreciationgroup.blogspot.com

And the website known as “Wikia La BD de Journal au Québec.” Link:

https://comicstripappreciationgroup.blogspot.com/search?q=connie+1941&updated-max=2025-02-23T14:30:00-05:00&max-results=20&start=1&by-date=false

The first site shows (among other things) what appears to be four Sunday Connie strips for 1941. One is the more-or-less orthodox strip for January 5. The other three are presumed to be the strips for the following three Sundays—though this requires significant explanation.

It appears that those three Connie strips have been heavily edited. The strips have been altered so that all of the panels are rectangles, some with horizontal long-sides and some with horizontal short-sides. This, of course, is inconsistent with the normal Connie Sunday layouts, at least beginning with the time-travel strips in mid-1936. Additionally, there are no speech balloons, so the main text-content is provided in captions that are numbered and typeset. Also, the art has been reworked in a few basic ways. The speech balloons were removed, and actually the art was heavily edited, principally by the elimination of much of the background work. Overall, they bear very little relationship to the Connie Sunday strip of a few months before.

The three strips palpably did not originate in the United States (except that they were probably based on Ledger  Syndicate art). I am not certain, but I think that the text is in Danish.

But are those translated strips the best versions of those three strips? By no means. Much of this discussion of the three strips is based on a comparison of those strips to a certain Cora strip. The Cora strip (as posted on the Wikia La BD de Journal au Québec website, is probably not the earliest iteration of the example in question, but it is plainly far more “complete” and “Ledger Syndicate-like” than the apparently Danish strips. Of course, in all of this analysis in this post I am generalizing, based on limited evidence.

But to look at the images, it does appear that the three Danish strips continue the story, and based on the art, I think that they are based on materials prepared by the Ledger Syndicate. However, at the moment I tend to doubt that these strips appeared in a US version. OSU apparently has an example of the Connie Sunday strip from after the January 5, 1941, strip. I’d love to know the content of that strip, as it would answer some important questions.

But anyway, here are a few guesses. The Ledger Syndicate produced the Connie Sunday strip in the US at least until and including January 5, 1941. The only proof of that of which I am aware is an example from the Boston Sunday Post. It is not safe to assume that the January 5, 1941, Sunday appeared in any other US newspapers, unless relevant examples appear.

In also appears that the post-January 5 strips (as well as earlier examples, of course) appeared as instances of the Cora strip, in French, likely for at least the three Sunday strips that followed January 5.

Based on the one example of the Cora strip being discussed, it is likely that the Cora strips for surrounding dates were far more finished and “original” than the Danish Connie examples mentioned above.

Were there other Connie or Cora instances (for the three weeks after January 5, 1941) in addition to the ones mentioned above (for example, in the United Staes, or in any foreign countries)? I would think that is likely (even though I am doubtful about their appearance in the United States).

But all we know for certain is that there were three very primitive Danish examples and one Cora example. It is difficult to know anything with certainty regarding the appearance of Connie Sunday strips after January 5, 1941.

So, how many Connie Sunday strips were there? There are a confirmed total of 611. After that, things tend to be more uncertain, but it appears that there were at least three more strips than that. That would make 614. I tend to doubt that there were more than that, but I’m not going to suggest that.

—Tom Sawyer

November 1, 2025

Frank Godwin created at least six advertisements for the Jordan Motor Car Company, Inc.

Here I am referring to ads I am positive or almost positive that he created the art for. As I recall, five of those show his signature, and the sixth has multiple features which make it pretty certain that Godwin created the illustration.

I ran across over the weekend (on the internet) an example that was new to me, and which I was quite excited about, because it was in full-color (unlike the other Godwin ads for Jordan I know of), and because it is quite beautiful. Through a circuitous route, I ultimately located an excellent reproduction of it, on a German-language website. The website where I found the image below is basically http://www.hifi-archiv.info/Auto-Werbung.

The only place I know for certain that it appeared originally in print was the November 1, 1920, issue of Vogue, which I gather is kind of scarce, and a copy of that issue would be likely to be quite high in price, if it were available.

An image search via Google seemed to locate examples on only two websites: the website mentioned above, and an academic website (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08821127.2016.1241641) upon which the image could not be viewed by me readily, although that is where I found (via Google) a reference to an issue of Vogue that carried the advertisement, which I relied on in my effort to locate the image elsewhere. (More accurately, there were references to several issues of Vogue, and I had to locate the right one.)

The issue of Vogue mentioned above presumably can be viewed on the Vogue website after a payment, making it, in my opinion, a highly undesirable way of viewing the image.

I also found the ad on the archive.org site, in a digitized copy of the issue of Vogue referred to above, but the reproduction there is black and white, and overall not of great quality.

I find it interesting that the three places I know of where one can view the ad are (as mentioned above):

a) The Taylor and Francis site, where you can download the academic article (“Baby You Can Drive My Car: Advertising Women’s Freedom in 1920s America,” by Einav Rabinovich-Fox) for a trifling FIFTY-THREE DOLLARS, or if you want the entire issue of American Journalism in which it appeared, it’s a modest TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. Yeah, there are apparently other means by which free access can be had, but suffice it (at the moment) to say that I don’t like that approach, and I would like to say to everyone involved that if they want to buy my Godwin book, to them the price is $5,000 per copy. (I’m NOT saying that, but I would LIKE to! Like any of them would want the book anyway!)

b) The Vogue website, where viewing the issue in question requires payment. That might be bothersome, especially since we are talking about an issue that appeared more than a century ago, but fine.

c) The archive.org website, which has that issue of Vogue in black and white. And that image isn’t even an ideal black-and-white version.

d) The wonderful German-language website that allowed me to obtain a high-resolution image free, with no strings attached. That image is the one shown below.

By the way, the little mark beneath Godwin’s name is a symbol associated with the Charles Daniel Frey Company, which was an advertising agency Godwin was connected with for a time. It says “FREY,” although the letters are distorted to fit the circular shape. According to the Online Archive of California, the company “operated until its liquidation in 1948.” (https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt1c6003fx/admin/)

Here is an enlarged version of the section that shows the FREY symbol:

—Tom Sawyer

March 26, 2024

Below is a detail from my favorite work of art by Godwin, out of the Godwin originals I have. I have used a similar image as the “side images” of this blog. I think the image below is a somewhat clearer photograph. Even if it is not better, it does show a little more of the painting toward the bottom and toward the left.

The oil painting was used in a calendar more than a century ago. If you are really “into” Godwin, you have probably seen an image of the entire painting (or, more precisely, an image of what I assume was the calendar image) as posted (not by me) on the internet. I know of only one place it has been reproduced in color on paper, and that was in the calendar referred to, which included three other illustrations by Godwin as well, not including the cover. (Actually, come to think of it, I think  have seen listings for a recent version of The Blue Fairy Book that used much of the image on its cover.)

I love to look at the painting, in part because of the romantic theme, and in part because of its complexity and beauty—also for other reasons, of course. It’s fascinating to see the brushwork which is somewhat visible in the above image, as well as Godwin’s handling of the trees (foreground and background), the folds,  the lighting, and other details.

I have only seen (or heard of) one example of that calendar, and it is the one in my collection. I suspect that that calendar is one of the rarest Godwin items.

Thomas A. Sawyer

February 10, 2024

Today I ran across an advertising booklet from 1921, issued by the Washington School of Cartooning (which apparently would be considered a division of the Washington School of Art, or could simply be the same school) and findable on the archive.org website, more specifically at LINK. The source of the booklet is said on that website to be the Library of Congress.

I was surprised to see the drawing by Frank Godwin “Before Beginning Studies,” since it seems out of keeping with other early drawings by Godwin of which I have seen reproductions. I believe that the rather primitive drawing shown predated his earliest published works. Those other works, as simple and as unsophisticated as they are, seem to show significantly more drawing acumen than the early drawing shown below.

Since we don’t know the date of the primitive illustration, it seems possible that it was drawn long before he began his “studies”—even before the 1907 drawing shown at the end of this post.

Below are shown the cover (with illustration not by Godwin) and and a page with two Godwin drawings—also a couple of details. The signature is a little hard to read. It is either “Frank W. Godwin” or “Francis W. Godwin.” I tend to think it is “Francis,” because I don’t make out a “k,” and there is considerable space between the “Fran” and the “W.”

For comparison is the below image, which appeared in an earlier post on this blog. This 1907 image was copied from an image on the Chronicling America website of the Library of Congress (from a digitized version of either The Evening Star or The Sunday Star). As simple as this image is, it is significantly more advanced than the first Godwin image in the above-mentioned booklet.

I’ll probably discuss Godwin’s early styles further, since there is a lot more to say on the topic.

Thomas A. Sawyer

February 6, 2024

Today I located one of the photographs I made of the photograph I was shown at Kings County Hospital, back in 1975. It is actually what can be called a “35mm slide transparency,” or more popularly called a “slide.”

This is a type of photograph that could be projected onto a screen in a darkened room. Looking back, I am a little surprised that I had the prescience to photograph the photograph. I suppose I brought the camera hoping to photograph the actual murals. I cannot remember what I was told by the staff, but I left the hospital with the impression that the Frank Godwin murals might no longer exist.

Anyway, these comments are based on an image that is little in size. The photograph (within the slide-image) does not fill the image, and the portions of the mural are small within the original image. I hope I am making myself clear!

Anyway, I’ll start by saying that the photograph portrays (among other things) a vertical section as referred to in the preceding post in the following terms (note boldface):

Let’s tentatively assume that there are several murals, each of which consists of three panels: a wide “left-panel,” a tall “center-panel,” and a wide “right-panel.” Thus each mural would have a set of two wide (horizontal) images and one tall (vertical) image. This may not be accurate for all of the murals, but based on what I have seen, it may be so. But, I stress, it may also not be so. To me, it’s just a way of organizing the images that are known to exist.

The vertical section of the mural in the photograph is painted to represent shelves of books.

Then to each side of the center panel, the photograph shows what is almost certainly a very small portion of a much larger horizontal image.

The portion on the right is plainly part of the nursery-rhyme panel that is partly shown in the Daily News image discussed in the preceding post. That image (in fact the entire relevant page) from the Daily News is shown on the “Frank Godwin, Artist,” Facebook page. That is the only place I have seen that Daily News page. Link: Daily News page showing murals.

Below, I am showing a section of the Daily News image from the Facebook page just mentioned. This corresponds closely to the section shown in my slide. You can make out “the cat and the fiddle” toward the upper-right. The bed frame is similar to those shown in my slide.The two obvious rectangular “plates” beneath the girl are present in my slide. To the left of those may be a third plate, which I do not see in my slide.

Portion of Daily News image:

Even though the Daily News image shows probably four times as much of the right panel as my slide does, I believe it is highly likely that the Daily News image, in turn, shows only a part of the right panel. I am pretty sure that the child shown in the mural is a little girl reading a book. One of the things that confused me when I first saw the Daily News image was that the sitting child looked to me more like a character of the type often portrayed in the works of Maxfield Parrish. But in my slide the tones are more nuanced than in the rather contrasty image shown on the Facebook page, and I always believed, and still believe, it is a little girl.

On the other side of the vertical panel, my slide shows a section of the left panel, presumably a very small part. It shows a little boy with a book, among other things.

Thomas A. Sawyer

February 5, 2024

This post deals with Frank Godwin’s murals at Kings County Hospital, in Brooklyn, New York (current name is somewhat different). This post is an overhauled and expanded version of an earlier post, which itself was more or less an updated version of a post that I posted back in 2012.

I think that the first place I heard of Frank Godwin’s murals for Kings County Hospital (and at least one for the Riverside Yacht Club) was in Who’s Who in American Art.

Back in 1975, when I was on a family trip to the east coast (and elsewhere), I visited the hospital in the hopes of seeing the murals. My parents went with me, or I suppose I should say I went with them! But anyway, they waited in the car. I can’t remember whether my brother and sister went with us on that adventure.

Anyway, at the hospital during that visit, I was shown a box of materials which included a black and white photograph taken apparently in a children’s ward, showing portions of a mural which I am certain was painted by Frank Godwin.  It portrayed a little girl and a little boy (I believe somewhat larger than life-size), each reading a book, and the background had a nursery-rhyme theme—a very charming picture, somewhat reminiscent of (but quite different from) Godwin’s wonderful cover illustration for Tales from Shakespeare. I’m not precisely certain how this fits in with the images discussed below. I am not going to discuss that further in this current revision of this post.

Years ago, I found that Google Books has a digitized version of The Architectural Forum, Volume 57, 1932, in “Snippet view.” The following tantalizing text was visible, apparently in connection with Kings County Hospital:

Below are sketches of wall treatments in the children’s department. The murals were executed by Frank Godwin [. . .]

Recently I came into possession of an example of the relevant issue of The Architectural Forum. It is the issue for November 1932. It shows very small images of what I suppose could be called two wall-treatments. Each wall-treatment that was portrayed consisted of two large horizontal “panels” several feet above the floor, with the two panels separated by a much narrower vertical image that reaches down to the floor.

One of them, with a circus theme, was definitely not the final design (when compared to portions of the final mural in an image discussed below), and I tend to assume that the same applies to the other as well. Nonetheless, both designs pictured in The Architectural Forum are fully developed (as designs), and are by no means rough-appearing. However, they are not finished. That is, they seem to be more in the nature of black-and-white drawings with considerable detail, and not completed paintings. But to be clear, the circus-themed design is somewhat different from the finished mural in its actual content.

Let’s tentatively assume that there are several murals, each of which consists of three panels: a wide “left-panel,” a tall “center-panel,” and a wide “right-panel.” Thus each mural would have a set of two wide (horizontal) images and one tall (vertical) image. This may not be accurate for all of the murals, but based on what I have seen, it may be so. But, I stress, it may also not be so. To me, it’s just a way of organizing the images that are known to exist.

The following sections of this post show how I might list the Frank Godwin murals at Kings County Hospital (or the ones I know of, since there may be others). I do not know which of these exist, or don’t exist. The “Healing Walls” article mentioned below says: “Frank Godwin (1889–1959), 1932–33, Fairy Tales and Circus, Kings County Hospital (Now NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County). Brooklyn. Extant.” To me that suggests that at least those two (or at least parts of them) still exist. But based on the discussion below, I think it is highly likely that those would be considered two separate murals. I think we can also infer that the Pied Piper panel discussed below is considered part of the “Fairy Tales” mural. But I think that the fact that reference by name was only made to two murals or sections of murals, tends to imply the much of the mural work by Godwin for the hospital does not exist now.

The same article, which is linked-to below, also says, “This panel referring to the story of the Pied Piper was one of many that filled the walls of a children’s ward and adjacent spaces.” I’m not certain that this “many” refers to works by Godwin and no other artists. But again, the past tense is somewhat distressing.

However, although I can’t claim in-depth knowledge on the subject of murals, I believe that when an artist painted a mural in those days, it was often painted on canvas. If Godwin’s were painted on canvas, then it seems possible that any murals that are no longer there are in storage somewhere, or that they may be on display elsewhere.

MURAL ONE: CIRCUS THEME

One of the sets of two horizontal images has a circus image, inside a tent or tents. That is, both images show parts of the same scene, or are at least closely related. The vertical image shows a ticket booth with a man within it. The image below shows a portion of the “sketch” of the circus mural, from the November 1932 issue of The Architectural Forum, mentioned above:

Note: A picture of much of the left panel (probably about half) and center panel, and part of the right panel, appeared in the Daily News, February 15, 1933, presumably the New York Daily News. That page is shown on the “Frank Godwin, Artist,” Facebook page. That Facebook page is where I learned of that newspaper item.

Immediately below is an image of a small chunk of one of the murals, which I extracted from the image (from the Daily News) on the “Frank Godwin, Artist” Facebook page. The photograph of the mural was taken at an angle, so the angles and proportions are not all precise. Below that image is shown roughly the same section of the relevant image in The Architectural Forum.

Since the design differences may not be immediately evident, below I am posting both of the images, but with arrows (explained below) pointing to certain specific features. There are other differences as well.

Red arrows: Left, no clown; right, a clown head, with pointed hat.

Orange arrow: Left, no clown hand; right, clown hand. But note, in the actual mural, there may be a clown further to the left.

Yellow arrow: Left, no audience; right, apparent audience.

Green arrow: Left, a nicely rendered ringmaster or the like, quite large and apparently touching an elephant; right, a very different person, not easily recognizable.

White arrows: These show trapeze artists. In the image on the left, the trapeze artist on the right (only slightly shown at the right edge) is not near the pole. In the image on the right, the corresponding trapeze artist blocks part of the pole with his head and upper body.

MURAL TWO: TOYS AND NOAH’S ARK THEME

The other set of two horizontal images shown in The Architectural Forum has what appears to be a “toys” theme on the left, and a Noah’s Ark theme on the right. The vertical section shows a little boy retrieving a toy from a shelf. I have never seen that pictured anywhere else.

Note: The above descriptions of the images in The Architectural Forum may not be super-accurate, in part because the images are so small.

MURAL THREE: PIED PIPER OF HAMLIN THEME

It appears that the Pied Piper panel is likely to be one of the horizontal panels from a three-panel mural, in accord with the assumption stated above. But it could be, for example, an independent painting.

On Liz Rizzo’s “Frank Godwin, Artist” Facebook page, there is a highly fascinating Godwin drawing (posted October 19, 2016) showing the Pied Piper leading the kids from Hamlin. I had never seen that before. Liz indicated that the drawing may relate to one of Godwin’s murals at Kings County Hospital.

That drawing appears to be a preliminary drawing, similar but not identical to material in one of the final murals. It does say “Defraude” instead of “Defrauded,” and that even by itself would hint that it was subject to further development.

But clearer proof may be found in a full-color image of a small part of one of Godwin’s murals, found on a website of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College
 (47-49 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10065). More specifically, the image is found in an article entitled “Healing Walls: Health and Art in New Deal New York.” (I am not certain who the author or authors of the article are.) The article credits the image as follows: “Photograph courtesy of Larissa Trinder, NYC Health + Hospitals.”

Although it is noticeably different, that color image is plainly related closely to the image on Liz’s Facebook page. The overall composition is quite similar (as far as can be discerned from the color image). But as I said, there are differences, and also the wording has changed significantly.

The two images below show (a) a portion of the preliminary drawing just referred to (from the Frank Godwin, Artist, Facebook page) and (b) a portion of an image from the article just mentioned about art in New York hospitals.

Section of preliminary drawing:

Section of final painting:

Although in some ways that image is somewhat suitable for the “children’s department” of the hospital, personally I would never choose it for that purpose, because of the dark nature of the story.

MURAL FOUR: NURSERY RHYME THEME

This, like the Pied Piper mural just discussed, would seem to be simply one of two wide-images in an assumed three-panel mural. It is possible, though, that it is something else, such as an independent mural. It is also quite possible that the Pied Pier panel and the nursery-rhyme panel are both part of a three-panel mural.

In any event, an image of the nursery rhyme panel under discussion appears in the Daily News issue mentioned above, as shown on the Frank Godwin, Artist, Facebook page. From the caption, it appears that it pictures two nursery rhymes: “Hey Diddle Diddle,” and “Jack and Jill.” I have a feeling that the image in the Daily News shows only about half of that particular painting.

By the way, the image of the circus-themed mural shown in the Daily News—and reproduced on the Frank Godwin, Artist, facebook page—probably shows only about half of the left-side panel, and as to the right-hand panel, only about one sixth of the panel. I am basing these estimates on a comparison to the images in The Architectural Forum. But of course I am assuming that the images in The Architectural Forum are approximation of two complete murals.

—Thomas A. Sawyer

January 29, 2024

A recent post on the “Frank Godwin, Artist,” Facebook page shows images of murals that Godwin created for Kings County Hospital. I have talked about those murals in other posts on this blog. A commenter to that Facebook post referred rather laconically to a “mural in Grace’s Garret.”

Since nobody else said anything about it, I thought I would say a little here.

Grace’s Garret was a sort of restaurant on the upper floor of a building in Greenwich Village. I discuss it a little in an earlier post on this blog—that post is now “private,” but I may revise it and then make it public again. Grace Godwin was the former Grace Congleton, and was Frank Godwin’s first wife.

The New-York Historical Society Museum & Library has a collection of photographs by Jessie Tarbox Beals. Two of those show the interior of Grace’s Garret. Grace appears in both of those. A third photograph by the same photographer shows the exterior. As mentioned above, it is located on the upper floor. I think Frank Godwin probably had a role in the creation of the signage.

A mural is seen on one of the interior walls. I have kind of assumed that the mural was created by Frank Godwin, mainly because one of the two main characters appears to be a more-or-less typical self-portrait by Godwin.

I do not know who the person nearer to the viewer is. The images are easy to find on one of the society’s websites. Below is a relevant extract from one of the images. Here is a link to the entire image:

https://digitalcollections.nyhistory.org/islandora/object/nyhs%3A1161.

—Thomas A. sawyer

January 17, 2024

One of the precursors of Frank Godwin’s Rusty Riley strip was his Billy West strip, which I have discussed elsewhere on this blog.  I formerly had three examples (now sold) in my collection, and I wanted to draw attention to one of them in this post.

The first thing to note is that the Billy West art is positively gigantic.  The image is roughly 6 inches by roughly 27 inches.  Rusty Riley daily art varied in size, but most examples were probably about 5 inches by about 18 inches, image-wise.  (None of these measurements are precise.  I rounded-down, from measurements that were not exact anyway.)  So, I am talking daily art that is about 9 inches wider than the typical Rusty Riley daily is!

The Billy West strips, I believe, are no later than the surrender of Germany in May 1945, because of the reference to Germany (seen in the image below) that one of the characters makes.  It also seems likely that the strips date from after the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941.  A reasonable guess would be that the strips date from sometime during the period January 1942 through April 1945.

I do not know whether the Billy West strips were submitted to any syndicates.

Below is an image of a frame from one of the strips.  As can be seen, the strip was done in a freer, more “casual” style than either Rusty Ryan or Rusty Riley.  It is more like many of the Connie daily episodes.  This is one of the reasons why I see the strip as a bridge between Connie and Rusty Riley. 

Also, some of Godwin’s approach to this image can be discerned.  For instance, there are horizontal pencil-guidelines for the lettering.  The lettering was also pencilled-in, and that is most visible in the word “somewhere.”

The characters shown are Billy West (on the left) and Jim Carroll.  Their names are shown in other strips I formerly owned.

In this portion of a “Billy West” strip by Frank Godwin, Billy (also known as “Jeep”) discusses the whereabouts of his parents with his uncle, who was names Jim Carroll.

Also, you can see that the globe was pencilled-in apparently before the speech-balloon was drawn (a little of the pencil can be seen inside the balloon).

—Tom Sawyer

October 30, 2013

Slightly revised January 11, 2024

The John C. Winston Co. published deluxe versions of King Arthur and His Knights, Treasure Island, and Swiss Family Robinson, as well as many other books, in their “The Winston Treasure Shelf” series. The three titles specified are the only ones I know of in that series that were illustrated by Frank Godwin, although Godwin illustrated other books published by Winston, such as Kidnapped and Tales from Shakespeare.

In previous posts, I showed dust jackets on two different versions of King Arthur and His Knights from the series (two different deluxe versions).

Below are images relating to a deluxe Treasure Island. The first image shows the front cover. The second shows the “front cover” portion of the dust jacket. The next shows the “back cover” segment of the dust jacket.

There is at least one other version of the Winston deluxe Treasure Island, which I have seen on the Worthpoint website.

—Tom Sawyer

October 26, 2023

This is a revamped version of a post from eons ago. It deals generally with Frank Godwin’s paintings for the 1924 edition of The Howitzer, which is the yearbook of the United States Military Academy, familiarly known as West Point.

I want to begin by saying “thank you” to my daughter for taking the photographs that are shown in this post, with one exception (the first image below).

Frank Godwin served in the United States Army during World War I, so he was a fitting choice to produce illustrations for the book.  Essentially, Godwin produced illustrations for five of the major divisions of the yearbook.  He also produced two paintings which were reproduced on the front endpapers and were repeated on the rear endpapers.  So, a total of seven different Godwin illustrations appeared in the book, in all.

It’s hard to believe it, but next year it will be a century since the publication of the illustrations. They were produced at about the same time Godwin began work on the Vignettes of Life feature, and about five years before the start of the Connie comic-strip, in 1929.

Ironically, the frontispiece illustration, facing the title page of the volume, was not created by Godwin.  Instead, that task went to “Hurd,” whom I presume to be Peter Hurd, who for a time was a West Point student, and who was only twenty years old when the illustration was printed. I don’t think anyone today would say that it was a good illustration. Hurd went on to become a well-known artist.

The Godwin paintings were all attractive, though a couple were less interesting than others.  The painting for the “Activities” section was particularly nice.  It shows extremely effective use of colors and of light and shadow.  It reminded me a little of the rather theatrical illustrations Godwin produced for Tales From Shakespeare (published by Winston). The first edition of Tales From Shakespeare with Godwin illustrations was published in 1924—the same year as the yearbook. I hope, in a future post, to show a better image of the relevant page in The Howitzer. As I mentioned above, this photo was not taken by my daughter.

Another illustration of particular interest is the one for the “The Classes” section of the book.  The degree of detail in the illustration is amazing.  The use of color is well planned, with the stained-glass windows contrasting nicely with the subdued colors of the rest of the painting.

I am fortunate in having the original painting for that illustration in my collection. The painting medium appears to be (for the most part) some kind of opaque watercolors (loosely speaking)—gouache, I would think. Some of the watercolor appears transparent, and there are other features of the techniques and media that are difficult to analyze.

The illustration as published is a little bit cropped. Basically, the curve at the top is a little higher up in the original art than it is in the yearbook. (That may be a simplification of what was done. I haven’t meticulously compared the two curves.)

Here is an image of a detail from the original painting:

Another detail showing the cadet on the left in the preceding image:

Below is shown the illustration for the “Administration” section:

Below is the illustration for the “Athletics” section:

And here is the illustration for another section:

Below are shown the rear endpapers in the book:

As far as I know, the 1924 The Howitzer was the only edition of the yearbook that contained Godwin illustrations.

By the way, in my opinion there is no reason to believe that Godwin designed the botanical backgrounds.

—Tom Sawyer

October 8, 2023

Revised November 4, 2023

I mentioned in the preceding post that there was another deluxe version of King Arthur and His Knights with illustrations by Frank Godwin, besides the one discussed in that post. Below is an image of the front of the dust jacket on the different example in my collection.

The dust jacket shown is very different from that shown in the preceding post, even apart from the colors used. For instance, the botanical designs are entirely different. Also, the illustration is cropped a little differently. The above version has more distance above the heads of the characters, and a little more distance behind Guinevere’s back as well.

Perhaps sometime I will scan the covers of the two books. The designs are similar to the dust-jacket images that I have shown, and hence they differ quite a bit from each other.

It seems pretty likely that one of the books predated the other. If I were basing my judgment strictly on the two dust jackets shown, I would say that it’s quite probable that the above book predates the book shown in the preceding post. I’m not super-concerned about that issue, but there other things I can look to besides the dust jackets if I ever get around to a serious study of that issue.

Why do I think the above book appeared first? Two reasons. First, it shows more of the Godwin art than the other one does. Second, the printing is nicer. There are more subtleties in the colors on the above dust jacket.

How scarce are these books? Well, I do not see any examples of any deluxe Godwin versions of King Arthur and His Knights on eBay at the moment. And there are probably twenty or so non-deluxe versions on eBay now. Still, I don’t consider the deluxe versions to be hopelessly scarce, since I have the two under discussion, and at least one other. Also, I believe someone has pictured an example on Pinterest, and there may be other similar images on the internet.

But in dust jackets? I don’t think I have ever seen any examples of deluxe versions of King Arthur and His Knights (with Godwin illustrations) in dust jackets, other than the two in my collection.

In a future post, I hope to get into certain differences between the deluxe versions and the more-typical versions. For starters, though, the deluxe versions have different endpapers, showing an illustration that does not appear in the non-deluxe versions.

—Tom Sawyer

October 7, 2023

There is a Bruce Willis movie out there, where Bruce (spoiler alert) exits an airplane, and the airplane takes off (carrying a bad guy), and it flies into the distance. Bruce and his people watch. The plane is annihilated by the detonation of a nuclear weapon. Bruce says to his friends, “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day.”

That’s probably inexact, but it’s been a while since I saw that scene. Also, I suspect that  the line quoted has been used in other movies. And what I am going to talk about here is certainly not of the same proportions as what Bruce witnessed, but it is still highly unusual.

Below is a scan of a deluxe version of King Arthur and His Knights. The book has an introduction by Elizabeth Lodor Merchant. I don’t think I’ll go into a lot of detail about the book at the moment, in part because I don’t want to invest the time in that. These posts take forever to create. Also, I suspect that few if any people who see this post would really find more information of much interest or use.

Anyway, here is a scan of the front of the dust jacket:

I am refraining from language such as “deluxe edition,” mainly because the term “edition” can have different meanings for different people. Collectors tend to have one definition, and bibliographers another—and even this statement is a simplification. But assuming I can safely call this book “a deluxe version,” I do not say “the deluxe version,” because there are more that one as to this title.

I hope to go into that in more detail in a future post.

According to the front dust-jacket flap, this book is part of “The Winston Treasure Shelf.”

—Tom Sawyer

October 5, 2023

I tend to doubt that anyone has a really solid handle on all of the work Frank Godwin did for Liberty magazine. Maybe the main reason for this is that Liberty was a weekly periodical for almost all of its run, meaning more than fifty issues per year. (See the philsp website for details on Liberty‘s frequency.) All this being the case, it is quite possible to be aware of the existence of a certain illustration, and even be pretty sure it appeared in Liberty, and yet not know precisely which issue it appeared in.

Also, and this is something that is probably an axiom, if you have a lot of Godwin stuff, it is possible to forget the presence of certain items in your collection.

Two weeks ago, I received an email from Bill Mullins, alerting me to the fact that Diego Domingo had posted something on the Genii Forum relating to William Lindsay Gresham. Here is a link to that thread: Gresham thread.

Bill also alerted me to a Facebook page that Diego had referred to. More specifically, he sent me a link to this post: Post on Facebook page. That post shared a post from James Freeman’s Facebook-page, which pictured the first page of a Liberty magazine condensed-novel, from the January 4, 1947, issue. That story was Nightmare Alley, by William Lindsay Gresham, and the post showed an illustration by Frank Godwin for the story.

At the time, I thought that this was new information to me, which I suppose in a way it was. I was definitely aware that the original art for the illustration just mentioned had been posted on the internet. For instance, back on March 4, 2005, the original art for that illustration was sold by Heritage Auctions. Anyway, the Heritage auction-listing shows the date as “c.1940,” and says, “Probably for Liberty magazine.” Here is a link to the 2005 auction-listing: Heritage Auctions listing.

To repeat, in summary, the illustration under discussion was published in the January 4, 1947, issue of Liberty, and it was an illustration for a condensed version of Nightmare Alley, by William Lindsay Gresham.

But remember when I said, “I thought that this was new information to me”? Well, as I was working on this post, I had the nagging thought that I might actually have that issue of Liberty in my collection. To make a long story short, I undertook a search.

Did I find that issue?

No!

But I did find Nightmare Alley, as extracted from that issue!

The entire section is 16 pages, of which 15 are devoted to the story, but the story proper begins on the second page. The first page has the title and author, and a little blurb, and other miscellaneous wording, and, of course the “main” illustration—”main” in the sense that the image is much larger than the other illustrations. In all, there are eight illustrations.

I suppose that the foregoing can be called “Phase One” of this post.

“Phase Two” starts here.

There is another aspect of that particular issue of Liberty in general, to wit: Examples have recently changed hands at prices that to me seem unexpectedly high. We are talking hundreds of dollars, and in one recent instance, well over one thousand dollars.

And just what could be the cause of this phenomenon?

I know the answer to this, but why cut to the chase, when instead we have the opportunity to become bogged down in an arduous journey?

So, again, what explains the high prices?

The presence of the Frank Godwin Illustrations? No.

Well, let’s start with the obvious. The presence of the eight Frank Godwin illustrations plainly did nothing to move the needle. Without getting into a big discussion at this time, I’ll say that there are likely dozens of issues of Liberty on eBay at this instant, with one or more illustrations by Godwin, which are listed at reasonable prices, or in some cases low prices (say in the $5 to $15 vicinity).

Yes, a lot of “ordinary” issues of Liberty are priced higher, and I realize that at (say) $35, most people are not going to want to buy even one ordinary issue, let alone, say, twenty.

But my main point at the moment is that the Godwin illustrations had nothing to do with the recent high prices.

The presence of a John D. MacDonald story? No.

I saw a blog post by a gentleman who is interested in John D. McDonald, which is relevant to this discussion. The blog is called, “The Trap of Solid Gold: Celebrating the Works of John D. MacDonald.” Here is a link to that post: The Trap of Solid Gold.

There we learn that MacDonald had a story in that issue of Liberty, titled “Hole in None.” Now I think it’s safe to say that John D. MacDonald was a huge literary figure. Still, I gather, from the post (by Steve Scott) just mentioned, that there was nothing particularly epic about “Hole in None,” and thus the appearance of MacDonald in that issue probably had little if any impact on the price.

The presence of Nightmare Alley? No.

Then we come to the condensed version of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel Nightmare Alley. And while Gresham fans would certainly value the January 4, 1947, issue of Liberty based on the Gresham story, I think we can say with certainty that the presence of that novel condensation was not a significant factor in the recent prices for that issue. (I do think that might have justified a price in the $50-to-$100 vicinity, because Gresham does have a noticeable following, and Nightmare Alley has probably reached something like “classic” status as a noir novel.)

But, really, from what I am told, an example of that issue of Liberty sold at auction this year for more than $1600.

All right, then, what is the real cause of the recent high prices?

This part of the story is something of a spaghetti tangle. I am going to nutshell the situation according to my incomplete and imperfect understanding. What I am about to say about this is based largely (but by no means entirely) on this post by Mark Seifert, on the Bleeding Cool website: Secret Origin of Matt Baker’s Cinderella Love #25 Cover, at Auction. But my opinions stated here may easily diverge from Mark’s. (Thank you to Bill Mullins for aiming me to that post.)

• The January 4, 1947, issue of Liberty contains a certain illustration by Ernest Chiriacka showing a woman (mainly her face and shoulders).
• Later, a similar (most of us would say “the same”) illustration appeared on the cover of a Greek periodical.
• Later still, the December 1954 issue of a comic book called Cinderella Love bore a cover by Matt Baker, a leading comic-book artist. That cover bears many similarities to the Chiriacka illustration. I gather that many believe that the Chiriacka illustration was a major influence on Baker in the design of the cover. That issue of Cinderella Love is apparently quite scarce, and, moreover, it appears to be a key issue for Baker collectors (and others).
• Because of the foregoing, in recent years the January 4, 1947 issue of Liberty has been going for high prices. It appears that, until relatively recently, the “Baker significance” of that story had gone undiscovered.

Sorry or all of the weasel expressions like “apparently,” and “it seems, and “I gather”!

—Tom Sawyer

September 29, 2023