Jun 09, 2022 - Sale 2608

Sale 2608 - Lot 35

Price Realized: $ 750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

ARNOLD LOBEL (1933-1987)

"Dogs."

Illustration for the poem "Dogs" by Marchette Chute, published in Sing a Song of Popcorn: Every Child's Book of Poems" (New York: Scholastic Inc., 1988), page 68 and on cover. Watercolor and ink on paper. 190x127 mm; 7 1/2x5 inches, image, on larger sheet. Unsigned. Tipped to matte and archivally framed.

The charming poem it accompanied read: The Dogs I know have many shapes. For some are big and tall, And some are long, And some are thin, And some are fat and small. And some are little bits of fluff and have no shape at all."

Arnold Lobel was one of the greatest children's book illustrators of his generation. As gifted with words as pictures, he was one of a very few people to be honored by both the Newbery and Caldecott Committees. Although he won the Caldecott Medal for Fables (1980), he earned his immortality with the highly successful Frog and Toad series. "Lobel dealt head on with the complexities, misunderstandings, and emotional swings that define a true friendship," fellow illustrator Mo Willems has observed. "I can think of few creators who cared as much about his characters' emotional well-being as he did."