ROY G. KRENKEL - \"A Merchant of Robes\" - Original Pen Illustration Drawing 1950s
![ROY G. KRENKEL - \](img-large/g/ntMAAOSwAHZURGti/s-l1600/ROY-G-KRENKEL-A-Merchant-of-Robes-Original-Pen-Ill.jpg "ROY G. KRENKEL - \")
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ROY G. KRENKEL - \"A Merchant of Robes\" - Original Pen Illustration Drawing 1950s:
$100.00
Great and Rare Original Pen and Ink Drawing by Roy G. Krenkel. \"A Merchant of Robes\" 13.5 x 10.5 pen and ink on creme construction paper executed circa 1952
This drawing was a practice drawing for Roy\'s rare collection of drawings done in homage to one of his artistic idols the Australian illustrator Norman Lindsay. While it is difficult to put an exact date on this drawing (and if memory serves me correct this one is not dated) Roy first came in contact with Lindsay\'s work on a visit to the Argus bookshop in Chicago during the 1940s. Ben Abramson, the proprietor was Lindsay\'s American agent and the walls of his bookshop were filled with framed examples of Lindsay\'s exotic pen drawings.
When Roy returned home to New York he kept in contact with Abramson and was able to purchase from him numerous books with Lindsay\'s illustrations. Around 1950 or so after a close study of Lindsay\'s work he began developing themes closely allied to the themes explored by Lindsay himself many of which took place in an Arcadian Never Never Land peopled by mythological creatures such as centaurs, satyrs, mermaids, harpies, chimera, and a wide assortment of amply proportioned Amazonian women. While these themes explored by Krenkel aped the similar themes frequently introduced into Lindsay\'s work they were in no way copies of Lindsay\'s drawings but original compositions that in their rendering adopted some of Lindsay\'s stylistic mannerisms. The culmination of Krenkel\'s exploration of the work of Norman Lindsay took the form of a portfolio of large drawings aptly titled \"Homage To Norman Lindsay\". This portfolio of drawings was shown some years after it was completed (Roy told me there were 12 drawings in the series executed both in pencil and pen and ink. ) to an Australian dealer Roy was in touch with who sold them as a set to an Australian collector. The tragedy here was that Roy kept way back when few \"photo copies of these drawings and the only finished drawing from the set which he held on to \"Goddess of Earth\" was stolen years later from Krenkel\'s house while his work was being moved into storage. (see The Art of RGK Vanguard Publications)
Another outcome of this labor of love which was also in the coming years to cause Roy some distress was that along the way the artwork he completed for this series was shown to Lindsay himself who ever vigilant of imitators who cannibalized his work mistook Roy\'s artwork for the work of the American illustrator Virgil Findlay who had at the time been borrowing motifs from Lindsay\'s work and incorporating them into many of the illustrations he did for the pulps. Lindsay had been made aware of Finlay and somehow thinking the portfolio Roy created had been executed by Finlay using a pseudonym (possibly because of some stylistic similarities between RGK\'s drawings and Findlay\'s) told his Australian agent that no reproductions of his work made from originals that had not hitherto been reproduced in books and magazines should be sent to Krenkel. This edict did not stop Roy however, from obtaining unpublished reproductions of Lindsay\'s work but he had to obtain them using the nom de plume of his friend Al Williamson.
To cut to the chase the current drawing up for sale is one of the practice drawings Roy executed prior to completing the large finished works. The central composition depicts a seller of robes offering his wares to a bevy of beautiful women in a Lindsayesque arcadian garden. Surrounding this central image are studies of mythological creatures such as centaurs and satyrs which appear on the back of the drawing as well that may have been practice sketches for another composition. That drawing like the present one are rare is an understatement. Few of a similar nature have ever come on the market for sale. While meant as a practice sketch this drawing is complete of and by itself and a beautiful sample of Roy\'s pen artistry at an early stage in his development. It is also a drawing that should appeal in a more universal sense to all lovers of great pen and ink drawing of a fantastic nature while remaining an historical record of the reverential homage of a great American fantasist to his famed Australian brethren. The successful purchaser of this drawing will be provided with authentication of its provenance by the RGK Estate. It comes from the artist\'s collection of his own work and has never been offered for sale before.
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ROY G. KRENKEL - \"A Merchant of Robes\" - Original Pen Illustration Drawing 1950s:
$100.00