'ROUGH SKETCHES - C W ANDERSON 41 WASH[ington] Sq[uare] NEW YORK CITY’: A Portfolio of Drawings

Portfolio of signed comic and suggestive sketches by the Nebraskan born artist Clarence Anderson, compiled while living in Washington Square in New York City.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: The sketches are housed in an ‘Anchor Clasp Envelope’ on which Anderson has written ‘Rough Sketches C.W. Anderson 41 Wash[ington’ Sq[uare] New York City.’ Old repairs to edges of the envelope. Anderson’s drawings are on thin paper (22x18cm), executed in black ink apparently as preparatory drawings for publication in a book or magazine. Each is signed to the lower right corner and with a slogan written below. There are illicit embraces (’I don’t want to be late for dinner. You know how fussy my husband is’), showgirls fending off advances and artists at work with nude models, mostly mocking of the lecherous male. In one image an expensively dressed woman leans across to a female friend as a bow-tied middle aged man bearing drinks approaches: ‘Yes all he wants is intellectual companionship - especially when you have on a low cut dress.’ Only a single horse - Anderson’s more usual metier - appears in the collection, waiting patiently beneath a huntsman who has been thrown from his mount and landed on a branch.

CONTEXT: Clarence William Anderson (1891 - 1971) was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, and educated at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He specialized in the writing and illustrating of books about horses, most of them for children. Original sketches by the artist are very uncommon in trade.