?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(ART.) Ted Shearer. Group of original cartoon art, including 3 of his Quincy strips. Ink and pencil on stiff paper, tinted with screentone overlays, and printed caption or credit slips laid down, various sizes; minimal foxing and adhesive staining, minimal wear, the Quincy screentones browned, the larger drawings laid down to heavier mat board but coming detached. No place, circa 1960-1972
Thaddeus "Ted" Shearer (1919-1992) was born in Jamaica and raised in Harlem. After meeting the established artist E. Simms Campbell (see lot 239) in high school, he went on to a long career as an artist and art director. His one-panel "Next Door" comic launched in syndication to the Black press in 1942, appearing in the Pittsburgh Courier and elsewhere. He is best known for his daily strip Quincy, featuring the adventures of a young Harlem boy and his friends, which had national syndication from 1970 to 1986.
Offered here are 4 of his "Next Door" panels, and 3 "Quincy" strips. The "Next Door" panels are each about 11 x 8 inches. They appear to date from the early 1960s, probably for publication in the New York Amsterdam News--they do not match the style of his most widely syndicated 1940s work, but look quite a bit like his Quincy strips from the 1970s. One strip makes a reference to "1962 pennies," and another is a fundraising appeal for the Amsterdam News Camp Fund which predates the 1963 introduction of zip codes. Two feature a hapless middle-aged character named Mr. Puddinhead, while another (the Camp Fund appeal) features the unmistakable future star "Lil' Quincy."
The three Quincy strips, each about 6 x 17 inches, are easier to place. They bear printed King Features Syndicate copyright slips and are dated in manuscript, 30 March 1971 (but with an inked stamp reading 26 February 1971 on verso), 3 August 1972, and 30 June 1973. In the 1971 strip, Quincy's young friend is bound for the planetarium and hopes that the stars on the ceiling will include Sidney Poitier and Flip Wilson. The 1972 strip (illustrated) shows Quincy and his friends luxuriating in an open fire hydrant.
