Mar 10, 2020 - Sale 2533

Sale 2533 - Lot 267

Price Realized: $ 625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(WORLD WAR TWO.) McCutchen, C.H.; artist. Group of original patriotic cartoons done by an Army private. 14 colored pencil and ink drawings, each about 12 x 8 1/2 inches; a few with moderate wear. [Africa], circa November 1942 to June 1944
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Additional Details

These original cartoons satirizing the Axis powers and the foibles of the American enlisted man were done by a United States Army private, probably for publication in a unit newspaper. Typical titles include "Germany, the Cornered Rat" and "Famous Last Words: Not One Bomb Shall Fall on German Soil." A couple of them celebrate Soviet successes on the eastern front, including a Nazi receiving "the sickle and hammer" in "Ukaraine." One heavily burdened G.I. is captioned "Here is how you feel fully equipted and ready to move," while another depicts a soldier "on the march" being told to "hurry up, bud" by a turtle, and then leaping energetically over the turtle "to chow" (we see the same phenomenon here at Swann at lunch hour).
The artist was Charles Homer McCutchen (1906-2000), the only C.H. McCutchen we find in the 1940 census. He was then a resident of Chicago, where he made his living as a "painter & japaner" for a "scientific apparatus company," and also worked as a freelance artist. He served in the army in Africa from November 1942 to June 1944, then at Camp Barkeley, TX through December, where he later made a battalion insignia depicting a G.I. holding Hitler and Hirohito by the scruffs of their necks (see Abilene Reporter-News, 17 December 1944). Provenance: consigned by the heirs of advertising executive Russell Kennedy Jones (1897-1986), who served as a Lieutenant Colonel in Africa during the war, working in public affairs; he presumably supervised the production of these cartoons.