?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(CARICATURE / COMEDIANS) LARRY LEE (20th century) Group of 21 caricatures of 20th-century comedians commissioned for the Comedy Hall of Fame, circa 2005. Ink with occasional watercolor on stiff paper. 431x356 mm; 17x14 inches, plus two lithographs printed in pink, black, and white, created from drawings of the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy, measuring slightly smaller. All signed by Lee.
In addition to the Marx Brothers and a different rendering of Laurel and Hardy than the litho, the original drawings include: Abbott and Costello, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Charlie Chaplin, Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, Moms Mabley, Mae West, among others.
The illustrations were apparently commissioned for a Manhattan location of the Comedy Hall of Fame which was never realized, but was instead built on Long Island in Jericho, New York. The thriving center operates as a conservancy and production company, dedicated to preserving comedy as a performing art and through extensive programming, classes, and educational outreach.
