Jan 28, 2016 - Sale 2403

Sale 2403 - Lot 52

Price Realized: $ 2,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
WANDA GÁG.
"F is for Frog." Crayon on paper. 180x220 mm; 7x 8 1/2 inches. Signed and dated lower right, incription at bottom reading, "Preliminary drawing for F for Frog - he's fat and funny (from The ABC Bunny)." Matted. 1933.
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Additional Details

Inscription on verso states: "This drawing to be used only for the Scottsboro Boys Fund - if not used, please return to Wanda Gág / Milford, New Jersey / RR #1." Additionally, a hand written receipt dated February 28th, 1934 for the Scottsboro Defense Fund is laid into the matte indicating that this work, a selection from her Newbery Honor winning book, was donated by the artist to a fund to support the legal defense for the Scottsboro Boys, the nice African-American teens wrongly accused of raping two white women on a train in Alabama in 1931. Nearly a decade of trials and retrials followed, ending with death sentences for most of the boys (later commuted to life). During that time, several grassroots efforts such as the one Gág contributed to helped fund retrials and legal counsel for the boys. The landmark series of trials set precedent for the right to fair trial and cases dealing with racism. Justice was finally served on November 21, 2013 when the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles granted posthumous pardons to the 3 Scottsboro Boys who had neither had their convictions overturned nor received a pardon.