?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
PEGGY WORTHINGTON BEST (DATES UNKNOWN) "Tortilla Flat." Illustration published on p. 35 of the novel, Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck (New York: Viking, 1947). Oil on board. Unsigned. 12 x 8 3/4 inches matted and framed to 21 1/4 x 17 1/4 inches. Page caption: "In truth, the bad Pilon for the moment had ceased to exist." Accompanied by a signed book and ephemera including correspondence with Viking Press and an exhibition brochure held at Bonestell Gallery.
Peggy Worthington was an artist and teacher whose students included Norman Rockwell. Little more is known about the artist, except that she was married to Marshall Best, a senior editor at Viking. Worthington was hired to create seventeen paintings for this illustrated deluxe edition of the book that had been first published in 1935. The paintings were reproduced as full color illustrations and jacket. She spent much time in Monterey, "and has admirably captured the atmosphere of both the setting and the kind of people of whom Steinbeck wrote. The strong, primary, human quality of the story is expressed in her paintings, and the result is a thoroughly handsome book to give and to own."
Tortilla Flat is one of Steinbeck's most highly regarded books, about the lives of countrymen in the run-down section of Monterey, California. The exhibition brochure included in this lot includes a quote by Steinbeck about the artwork: "I like these paintings very much. They have caught the country of Tortilla Flat with humor and understanding. It is a pleasure to me that she has painted them."
