DR SEUSS [THEODOR GEISEL] Tadd and Todd

Sale 2423 - Lot 95

Price Realized: $ 23,750

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

Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000

DR. SEUSS [THEODOR GEISEL.]
Tadd and Todd. Published in Redbook magazine, August, 1950, with dated publisher's label on verso. Ink and watercolor on board. 203x184 mm; 8x7 1/4 inches, on 10 1/4x10 1/4-inch board. Signed in lower left image. Image toned, abrasion and adhesive residue in lower margin, not affecting image; mounting tape on verso.

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Additional Details

"Tadd and Todd" is a recently re-discovered tale by Theodor Geisel. Largely forgotten after its appearance in Redbook, the story was given a second life by Seuss scholar Charles D. Cohen who gathered seven obscure Seuss works and published them in "The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories" with Random House in 2011. This illustration depicts the crux of the tale wherein Tadd, the reluctant twin who longs for uniqueness, struts his newfound look of dyed red hair, a flower betwixt the toes of one bare foot, and balancing a curious collection of animals and other accoutrements.

"Twins are one of the most frequently recurring images in Ted Geisel's work. His fascinations with them began in childhood, and he continued to encounter multiple births in a variety of forms throughout his life. When he was eight years old, conjoined twins Mary and Margaret were born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, just north of Ted's Springfield home. . . . Childhood is fraught with many difficulties, and twins face the additional challenge of balancing their own individuality against a shared identity with their sibling. Ted recognized this problem of twindom, and his sympathy for their plight struck a chord with generations of twins who received 'Tadd and Todd' in faded black-and-white photocopies over the decades. Ted's twins finally make their vibrant reappearance here, in one of the best of Dr. Seuss's lost stories"--Cohen, The Bippolo Seed, page 11.