DR SEUSS THEODOR GEISEL New Departure Ball Bearings

Sale 2337 - Lot 227

Price Realized: $ 12,500

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 20,000

DR. SEUSS [THEODOR GEISEL.]
New Departure Ball Bearings. Pen and ink advertisement on paper. 300x405 mm; 11 3/4x16 inches. Scattered minor foxing and a few lines of oxidizing, small abraded area just touching machine operator's head and cap, and the paws on one animal, but still generally clean and appealling. Unsigned, though mounted printed label and advertising department rubberstamp of New Departure Ball Bearings, Bristol, CT., on verso, crediting "Dr. Seuss" with the drawing. On exhibition mount. 1941.

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Additional Details

original advertisement drawing commissioned and executed on the eve of America's entrance into the Second World War, for New Departure, a division of General Motors. Depicts a pipe smoking man at the controls of a motorized contraption with a smiling nine dog powered hole-digging treadmill in operation. The finished advertisement as it appeared is contained in the Dr. Seuss Collection at the Mandeville Special Collections Library (MSS 230), at the University of California, San Diego, Library. The published ad is captioned "Mechanization Gets in the Groove" and describes the pictured machine "which digs ditches for pipe lines or for Army trenches," and above this is Geisel's rendering as seen here. Interestingly, two of the canines and the harnesses drawn for this ad are similar to those seen in book The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, published 16 years later.