July 15, 2021: Summer Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/15/2021
Here are three outstanding original pen-and-ink drawings of 1950s Detroit Tigers done by perhaps the most celebrated sports cartoonist of his time, Thomas “Pap” Paprocki, who delighted sports fans for nearly four decades with his daily cartoons and adjacent column for the Associated Press from World War II to the end of the 1960s. The sensational pen-and-ink work is done on 9-by-11-inch illustration board, with Pap’s inimitable style of a large figure or portrait of the player flanked by cartoon depictions and his classic story lines. The boards are in super condition, despite the passage of a half century and the rigors of having been handled by grizzled editors and grumpy typesetters; the typical editor’s marks appear on the board, most notably a date (but no year listed) and the title for that day’s publication. The three players are Virgil Trucks, Johnny Groth and Ted Gray, and all three players have signed their respective piece in black Sharpie that perfectly complements Paps’ fluid, elegant pen strokes. While no year is listed on the drawings front or back, the verbiage in the Groth piece calling him a young prospect suggests the earliest year(s) of his 1946-52 tenure for the Tigers (he returned in 1958-60); Trucks pitched for the Tigers from 1941-52 and a brief return in 1956 and Gray played for Detroit from 1948-54. These are simply superb drawings by a legendary figure in the newspaper business in the postwar era, further enhanced by Pap’s iconic signature that accompanied all of his work and three blazing autographs from the ballplayers depicted.
Three Original Pap Cartoons – Trucks, Gray and Growth – Signed by Artist and Players (3)
Click above for larger image.