May 07, 2020 - Sale 2534

Sale 2534 - Lot 105

Price Realized: $ 938
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(ART.) Harrington, Ollie; artist. "Bootsie baby, ain't no use hidin' your TV in the clothes closet." Ink and colored pencil on paper, 16 1/4 x 12 1/2 inches, unsigned; light horizontal crease and other minor wear, newspaper's pencil markings on verso including "Courier Nat'l News 10-31-70." [East Berlin, Germany?], 31 October 1970
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Additional Details

Oliver W. "Ollie" Harrington (1912-1995) was an African-American cartoonist best known for his character Bootsie, created for the Amsterdam News in 1935. Bootsie was an amiable Everyman, once described by Harrington as "a jolly, rather well-fed but soulful character." The caption for this single-panel cartoon reads "Bootsie baby, ain't no use hidin' your TV in the clothes closet to keep your room rent from gettin' raised. Super-woman knows all!" It shows Bootsie startled by his landlady, who is peering over the transom into his apartment. As noted on the verso, it was published in the Pittsburgh Courier, 31 October 1970, page 8. Harrington had left the United States for exile in France in 1951, and then to East Germany under political asylum in 1960, but continued to produce Bootsie and other work from abroad. No other original works by Harrington have been traced at auction since 2011.