dr. seuss art
TRANSCRIPT
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C H A S E A R T C O M P A N I E S | C H I C A G O , I LAr tist Management & Publishing | 3176 MacAr thur Blvd. | Nor thbrook, IL 60062
Images Compiled and Edited by
William W. Dreyer and Robert Chase Jr.
Written by
Caroline M. Smith
Secrets of the DeepT H E LO ST, F O RGOT T EN , A ND H I D D EN WORKS O F
T H EODOR S EUSS G E I S E L
Dr. Seusss
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I have said that Ted knew he would leave big footprints after he was gone, but he couldnt possibly have known the astounding impact his legacy would have on the worlds of art, literature, pop, and high culture.
It is poetic that one of Teds most treasured possessions is a fossil given to him by his father in 1933. Its a heavy stone slab embedded with a dinosaur footprint eleven inches wide and sixteen inches long. Provenance placed its discovery near Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Yale anthropologists believe it to be 150 million years old; Ted called it the oldest antique in the world. He loved that piece and always kept it close, moving it with him wherever he lived. Today it is prominently displayed at the entryway of our home, Seuss House.
For me this big footprint is symbolic of a life that made a permanent mark; a life held in universal high esteem; a life whose joyful rhymes and far-off fantasies speak still to an ever-growing world of readers.
This in-depth look at Teds artistic life ventures through chapters of his career that many never knew existed, from his days as an advertising illustrator to his work on the war effort, his political cartoons, and of course the images that connected so many children and parents in an enlightened approach to reading. Here you will also find key examples of his most treasured private works, some of which are familiar and others that are just now seeing the light of day. Through it all, it is Teds undeniable, consistent, and unique artistic footprint that carried him through so many personal and professional adventures.
It is with great pleasure that I share Ted, his art, his imagination, and his boundless creativity with you through the pages of this book. I am gratified to carry out Teds wishes and have these works revealed to the world.
I dedicate Secrets of the Deep to Teds artistic footprint in time, now set forever in stone.
Audrey Geisel S E P T EMBER 10 , 2 010 L A JO L L A , C A L I F O RN I A
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Ted Geisel expressed to his wife, Audrey, that he wished to wait
until he was gone before introducing his private artworks to the
public. Secretly, Ted wanted to be recognized as a serious artist,
but openly, he was quick to describe his private works as
midnight paintings. Fortunately for Seuss fans and scholars,
that is exactly what was left behind when he died in 1991. More
than sixty of Ted Geisels midnight paintings were revealed for
the first time in his 1995 book The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss.
These are the windows to the world of an unassuming genius.
Artistically, they embody a magical combination of the person
and persona of Ted Geisel and Dr. Seuss and, in many ways, are
what one imagines the Good Doctor would create late at night in
his hilltop studio. At other times, the imagery and titles stretch
well beyond all preconceived notions. In either case, Seuss
delivers a feast of visual stunners, dense with ideas.
While researching Teds paintings and sculpture at his La Jolla
home, I became aware that Ted and Audrey kept more than
forty artworks behind a concealed false door that were publicly
unknown and unpublished, all waiting for Audrey to reveal them
to Teds fans. This discovery sparked a passion to uncover and
catalog other lost, forgotten, and hidden works from Teds past.
Secrets of the Deep presents these new findings, along with
lesser-known favorites, through an expanded and reorganized
look at the artistic legacy of Theodor Seuss Geisel. Along with
the unpublished paintings from the Estate of Dr. Seuss, several
works from private collections are also published here for the
first time, including Xmas Chaos, The two in the bush that the
bird in the hand is worth more than, and Charles Hendersons
Conscience Chasing His Soul. In no way do we attempt to
present a catalogue raisonn, a daunting endeavor considering
Teds almost seventy-year career. Rather we seek to introduce a
compelling medley of artworks from nearly every aspect of Ted
Geisels multifaceted career, with a spotlight on works that are
significant in and of themselves, or artistically lead to, or
connect back to, important milestones.
For those unfamiliar with the 1995 book The Secret Art of Dr.
Seuss, we include those artworks, now reunited with the latest
Geisel archive discoveries, and present them thematically
throughout the first and third chapters. Missing from this book
is Seusss best-known calling cardthe work from his illustrated
childrens books. Despite their absence, you will recognize the
familiar Zeitgeist of his beloved characters, secreted away
beneath a thin veil. We do, however, give special attention to
three lesser-known books, The Seven Lady Godivas (1939),
McElligots Pool (1947), and Happy Birthday To You! (1959).
Unlike the majority of Seusss literary works, these books
present fully developed paintings on each page in place of
traditional pen-and-ink illustrations. Aside from these three
childrens books, and in keeping with this books subtitleThe
Lost, Forgotten, and Hidden Works of Theodor Seuss Geisel
we focus largely on unknown works, aiming to identify the visual
ingredients that later inform nearly all of Teds childrens books.
If Seusss mischievously good-humored books and editorials hint
at a puckish imagination, his midnight paintings confirm it. Using
an uncanny visual wit and premonition, Seusss hipness somehow
rivals the coolest postmodern art on the scene today. As children,
we grew up on Seusss playful verse and zealous imagination.
As adults, we realize that Theodor Seuss Geisel is not just an
important and innovative 20th-century painter but one of the few
artists working in any medium who knows how to make people
happy while at the same time inspiring them to think.
To this day, artworks in the Geisel archives are rarely, if ever,
shown outside the Estate of Dr. Seuss. It is only with the support
and vision of Audrey Geisel that a collection of authorized
Estate Editions are accessible for museum exhibition and
private collection. Twenty years after Teds death, these works
complete her promise to share his art. In her introduction to
The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, Audrey writes, I remember telling
Ted that there would come a day when many of his paintings
would be seen and he would thus share with his fans another
facet of himselfhis private self. That day has come. I am glad.
We share Audreys enthusiasm and, through this forum, present the
breadth of Ted Geisels artistic endeavors, so that he may be
evaluated not only as an author but also as an artist in his own right.
P R E FAC E
William W. Dreyer CURATOR , T H E A RT O F D R . S EUSS
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S E C R ET A R T A ND T H E G E I S E L A RCH I V E S
The Deco Period
The international design style art deco originated near the outset of World War I and remained
popular through the end of World War II (circa 1915-1945). As this time frame fluctuated
dramatically between years of want and plenty, art deco was an elegant, contemporary
interpretation of the standards and expectations, fascinations and frivolities of each culture
in which it developed. The paintings that Ted Geisel created during this period reflected that
roller coaster of dreams and desires.
Many of Teds paintings of the 1930s and 40s used an artistic element derived from his most
successful work as a commercial illustrator. Referred to here as Geisels Deco Period, these
years refer to his instinctive use of saturated black backgrounds combined with art deco
elements often found within the architecture of his artworks. Ultimately, he created a new
visual language that accentuated the muted pallets so characteristic of this period. From
signature smoke rings billowing from Seussian mountaintops to architectural labyrinths
decorating otherworldly landscapes, elements such as these reflected Ted Geisels creative
interpretation of the art deco movement.
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Elephant Presenting Flower to a BirdINK AND WATERCOLOR ON ILLUSTRATION BOARD
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S E C R ET A R T A ND T H E G E I S E L A RCH I V E S
La Jolla Birdwomen
Ted and Helen Geisel fell in love with La Jolla on their first visit in 1928. Twenty years later,
they began looking for a permanent California homea place where the climate would allow
Ted to walk around outside in my pajamas. In a one-day search, the couple purchased
La Jollas Tower, a rundown observation structure atop Mount Soledad, which had become a
lovers-lane destination, its walls carved with the initials of hundreds of couples. They built
their permanent home around the Tower, making it Teds studio.
By 1953, Ted was completely enthralled with La Jolla and wanted to give up movies and
advertising and anything else that means dueling with vice presidents. He lamented to
his agent, Phyllis Jackson, that he simply wanted to stay in Southern California and write
childrens books. She responded that the current baby boom, and the burgeoning market for
childrens literature, made that financially possible. Encouraged, Ted made a new commitment
to books. With that settled, he also chose to become more visible in the community. He became
a trustee of the San Diego Fine Arts Museum and of the La Jolla Town
Council. The Geisels were coveted dinner guests, and Teds first wife,
Helen, became known for her elegant entertaining, which included an
annual Christmas Eve dinner with a guest list that grew over the years to
sixty-five. Helen joined the board of directors of the La Jolla Museum of
Art, and through her best friend, Marian Longstreth, took great interest
in the La Jolla Playhouse, which was led by the actors Gregory Peck,
Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer.
Becoming enmeshed in the social comings and goings of La Jolla gave Ted a lush playground
for concocting not only elaborate gags on his stylish neighbors but also for teasing them
artistically. As one of the few men in town who worked from home, Ted lightheartedly
considered himself a bird watcher on the social scene, always looking to create gentle spoofs
of his chic female friends taken up in their whirl of luncheons, parties, and charity balls.
The result was Teds series La Jolla Birdwomen, a spicy collection of eleven known paintings
with lyrical titles, works that could have sprung only from the mind of a genial witness
for example, My Petunia Can Lick Your Geranium; Not Speaking; Martini Bird; Gosh!
Do I Look as Old as All That!; View from a Window of a Rented Beach Cottage; and
Oh, Id Love to Go to the Party, but Im Absolutely Dead.
In August 1963, Ted Geisel donated a painting from the Birdwomen series to a charity
auction benefiting the La Jolla Art Center. This socially minded artwork, entitled Mrs. Norilee
Schneelock Poured, Miss Nesselroda Sugared, or Raising Money for the Arts in La Jolla,
portrayed two grand dames of good intentions elegantly nestled in deco environs, happily
doing the important work of promoting the arts. It delighted the audience that night and won
the top auction bid, more than was paid for a Czanne drawing. It was the only time that Ted
offered one of his midnight paintings for sale.
AS ON E O F T H E F EW MEN I N TOWN
WHO WOR K ED F ROM HOME , T E D
L I G HT H E A RT E D LY CON S I D E R ED H IM S E L F
A B I R D WAT CH E R ON T H E S O C I A L S C E N E ,
A LWAYS L OO K I N G TO C R E AT E G E N T L E
S P OO F S O F H I S C H I C F EMA L E F R I E ND S .
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Raising Money for the ArtsOIL ON CANVAS
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S E C R ET A R T A ND T H E G E I S E L A RCH I V E S
The Cat Behind the Hat
The August 13, 2007, issue of U.S. News & World Report declared 1957 to be A Year That
Changed America. The article focused on ten disparate events. Among them were the Cold War
Soviet launch of Sputnik, setting off the race for space; the Dodgers and Giants both deserting
New York for California, bringing big-time baseball and world attention to the West Coast;
growing racial tensions hitting their peak in Little Rock; the introduction of the birth control
pill; and a former ad man, Dr. Seuss, revolutionizing the way that children learned to read.
U.S. News began the Seuss segment, The Birth of a Famous Feline, with this accolade,
Greece had ZeusAmerica has Seuss, and continued in part, In the 50 years since The Cat
in the Hat exploded onto the childrens book scene, Theodor Seuss Geisel has become a
central character in the American literary mythology, sharing the pantheon with the likes of
Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Of his many imaginative stories, The Cat in the Hat
remains the most iconic.
Ted Geisel had been writing childrens books for twenty years when
The Cat in the Hat first stepped into our lives and onto the world stage in
1957, literally supercharging his career. Geisels quirky Cat put him on the
fast track to becoming a force in childrens literacy due in part to the
books origins in an emerging philosophy of phonetic learning. Not only
was the vocabulary largely taken from a list of 220 beginners words but
Ted crafted the story in anapestic tetrameter, marking out a cadence that
was easy for young readers to grasp. Using this model, Ted, Helen, his wife
of forty years, and Phyllis Cerf, the wife of the Random House president
Bennett Cerf, would go on to found Beginner Books at Random House.
Over time the Cat in the Hat became more than a recurring character for Ted; it also morphed
into his alter ego, surfacing repeatedly in his surrealist thematic cat paintings. Whether he was
the wise embodiment of an ancient Eastern civilization (Wisdom of the Orient Cat, 1964), the
neer-do-well pool shark sporting a girly-cat tie (Cat from the Wrong Side of the Tracks,
1964), the biblically cloaked Joseph, who saved Egypt from starvation (Joseph Katz and His
Coat of Many Colors, 1970), or the Clouseauian inspector sleuthing a felon (Cat Detective
in the Wrong Part of Town, 1969), Teds intentions went far deeper. Disguised as a potpourri
of nonsense, these works combined his vivid imagination with a thoughtful understanding
of human nature. Truths whispered from these playful paintings and, if examined closely,
one could see Ted winking from every whiskered face.
OV E R T IM E T H E C AT I N T H E H AT B E C AME
MOR E T H AN A R E CURR I N G C H A R AC T E R
F O R T E D ; I T A LSO MOR PH ED I N TO H I S
A LT ER EGO , SUR FAC I NG R EPEATEDLY I N H I S
S U R R E A L I S T T H EMAT I C C AT PA I N T I N G S .
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Cat in the Cradle doing Cats in the CradleINK, PENCIL AND WATERCOLOR ON BOARD
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S E C R ET A R T A ND T H E G E I S E L A RCH I V E S
Pen & Ink (pencil and crayon)
Drawing was innate for Ted. He doodled on notepads all the way through high school and
college, and when he and his sister, Marnie, were young, he even drew a mural of crazy
animals in her bedroom between wallpaperings. His black loose-leaf Oxford notebook is now
an archived piece of ephemera, whose sixty-eight pages are mostly pen-and-ink cartoons.
Precious few pages have lecture notes.
At Oxford, Anglo-Saxon for Beginners was the class he shared with Helen, who would become
his wife in 1927. Bemused by Teds wandering mind and fascinated by his drawings, one day
she caught him illustrating John Miltons Paradise Lost by sketching the angel Uriel sliding
down a sunbeam, oiling the beam along the way with a tuba-shaped can. Youre crazy to be a
professor, she told him after class. What you really want to do is draw.
Teds first professional sale, a cartoon The Saturday Evening Post purchased for twenty-five
dollars and published on July 16, 1927, was all the encouragement he needed to pack his bag and
board a train for New York City. Before the summer ended, he had landed a seventy-five-dollar-
a-week job as a writer and artist for Judge magazine, the self-proclaimed worlds wittiest weekly.
This was Teds big breakthroughthe one that allowed him to marry Helen that November.
During the hard-pressed early 1930s, Ted supported them by selling
cartoons, often with vignettes or short stories, to Life, College Humor,
Vanity Fair, and Ballyhoo; his Flit insecticide advertising comics began
appearing in Colliers, The New Yorker, and Time. In the early 1940s, the
daily newspaper PM began publishing his political cartoons. He now had
enjoyed a decade-long legitimate career, one launched on the formidable
combination of his wit and his pen.
The volume of Teds illustrations contributed to the rapid maturity of his draftsmanship. By the
time he was illustrating his childrens books, his deft final-line drawings seemed effortless. One
of the distinguishing elements of many of those early drawings was the use of saturated black
India ink for the background, visually outlining and popping the imagery forward. This
technique naturally carried over into Teds more sophisticated paintings. (Black-and-white, as
well as full-color examples of this method, are pictured throughout this book.)
Like Norman Rockwell, Ted Geisel created every rough sketch, preliminary drawing, final line
drawing, and finished work for each page of every project he illustrated. Today that work is
typically farmed out to a team of artisans who do the artistic heavy lifting. Ted was from an era
and a mindset in which the artist lived or died by his own hand.
The December 17, 1960, New Yorker profiled Ted, describing his drawing board as a drafting
table with a sloping work surface on which he also kept his typewriter, typing at a tilt. The
Office, as Ted called his Tower studio, had walls covered with cork, so that he could pin up
illustrations and watch storylines develop. His bookcases were filled with the mysteries and
biographies he would read until the ideas began to flow. But the focus of the room was his
draftsmans desk and reclining chair, from which he commanded a spectacular 180-degree view
of the coastline from Oceanside to Mexico. Audrey recalls, I cant imagine Ted really being
productive without that view.
L I K E NORMAN ROC KWE L L , T E D G E I S E L
C R E AT E D E V E RY ROUGH S K E T CH ,
P R E L IM I N A RY D R AW I NG , F I N A L L I N E
D R AW I NG , A ND F I N I S H ED WOR K F O R E ACH
PAG E O F E V E RY P RO J E C T H E I L L U S T R AT E D .
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UntitledCRAYON ON NEWSPRINT
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UntitledWATERCOLOR, CRAYON AND PENCIL ON PAPER
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UntitledPEN AND INK, PENCIL ON BOARD
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UntitledCRAYON ON PAPER
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S E C R ET A R T A ND T H E G E I S E L A RCH I V E S
Seussian Abstraction
Many famous childrens writers had no children of their ownLewis Carroll, Edward Lear,
Beatrix Potter, Margaret Wise Brown, Maurice Sendak, the husband-wife teams of Margret
and H.A. Rey, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss, and, of course, Ted Geisel.
Over the years, Ted would occasionally mention his discomfort around children, especially
large groups of them. However, he was particularly fond of his great-nephew and namesake,
Ted Owens. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was dedicated to him the year after he was
born. Not only did Ted delight in the boys company but he also welcomed him into his studio
when he was working. Young Ted noticed everything and loved being there. Ted showed him
how to squirt acrylic paints on paper, swirl them with a palette knife, and finally smash them
with another piece of paper to create abstract color blotchesit was a great artistic adventure
that was all their own.
These playful pieces artistically fall within the category of abstract
expressionism, the first specifically American art movement to become
influential worldwide. Originally coined Action Painting in 1952 by
Harold Rosenberg, the art critic for The New Yorker, Rosenbergs
classic definition of the new movement could just as easily have been a
description of the studio experience for Ted and his nephew. At a certain
moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in
which to act. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.
That certainly was the way that Ted and his nephew saw their paintingsimpulsive, inspired
nonsensical happenings that delighted them both. Ted Owens spoke to Geisels biographers,
Judith and Neil Morgan, of those formative years with his uncle. He believed that life was a
place to have fun, Ted explained. It was a game, and doing crazy things was part of it. Wed
be sitting out beside the pool for breakfast and hed make me laugh so hard that I could barely
eat. Later, when as a teenager Ted attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena,
their bond grew even stronger. I was living and breathing painting and art because Uncle Ted
said painting has to be full-time if youre going to be any good.
O N E E Y E S E E S L I K E P I C AS SO ,
T H E OT H E R L I K E WH I S T L E R S MOTH E R .
TED GEISEL IN 1979
BETWEEN CATARACT OPERATIONS.
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UntitledOIL AND PENCIL ON PAPER
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UntitledACRYLIC ON PAPER
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P UB L I S H ED A RCH I V E S , L O S T A ND R A R E WOR K S
Scenes from a Theatrical Production that Never Was
When Ted Geisel was twenty-two, he was already in love with the theater, with travel, and with
Paris. During his sojourns around Europe in 1926, he returned to the City of Lights time and
again, calling it perfect. He wrote to his Dartmouth College confidant, Whit Campbell, from
Zurich, I saw a few shows in Paris (Doug Fairbanks and Mae Murray, of course, on the side.)
Mary Garden was at the Opra-Comique in Pellas and Mlisande and it was pleasing to hear
what a Chicago girl can do with Debussy. But the show that is attracting the American trade is
still the Folies-Bergre. I had to go (I always go there to release imprisoned sex instincts).
The legendary cabaret, Folies-Bergre, was at the height of its popularity in 1926, featuring
Josephine Baker and Mistinguett, Maurice Chevalier and Charlie Chaplin. Always providing an
impressive array of entertainment, a typical bill of fare at the Folies included song, ballet,
acrobatics, pantomime, and, of course, the trademark bawdy and bold dancers.
Artists, writers, and celebrities, as well as the nobility of Europe, were drawn to the Folies-
Bergre for its cross-cultural, libertine experience. douard Manet and Guy de Maupassant
both frequented the Folies, Manet immortalizing it in oil, in Bar at the Folies-Bergre (1882),
and Maupassant in words, in Bel-Ami (1885). Ert designed gloriously extravagant deco
costumes and stage sets for the Folies from 1919 to 1930. In the early thirties, two friends
concentrated on the underbelly backstage. Brassa photographed its dancers in bare black and
white, and Henry Miller wrote about them in Tropic of Cancer.
Ted Geisels fascination with the theater prompted him to paint four early watercolors, which
together are entitled Scenes from a Theatrical Production that Never Was. With their art
deco architecture and scantily clad exotic performers, these pieces are reminiscent of the
Folies-Bergre of the twenties, and they humorously and irresistibly bear the Seuss brand.
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PFC Filers StoryWATERCOLOR AND TEMPURA ON PAPER
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P UB L I S H ED A RCH I V E S , L O S T A ND R A R E WOR K S
Secrets of the Deep
Ted Geisel and Standard Oil enjoyed a twenty-five-year advertising relationship that saw the
Geisels through the Great Depression and also allowed Ted to indulge his artistic creativity.
In the biography by Judith and Neil Morgan, Ted explained: It wasnt the greatest pay,
but it covered my overhead so I could experiment with my drawings.
This mutually beneficial relationship began in May 1928 and evolved into Ted developing
multiple campaigns for the companys products, including a considerable amount of work for
Essomarine oil and lubricants.
When Essomarine launched its line of boating lubricants in 1934, it turned to Ted because
of his success with the companys car motor oil. The result was five fun years of Essomarine
advertisements and the creation of the famed Seuss Navy (1936-1949). The campaign began
with a thirty-page booklet, Secrets of the Deep, filled with Dr. Seuss illustrations and text by
Old Captain Taylor (a.k.a. Ted Geisel), whose name could not help but conjure up the then
popular Old Taylor bourbon.
By 1936, Essomarine had distributed 75,000 copies of Secrets of the Deep.
That summer, Secrets of the Deep, Vol. II came out to the delight of Seuss
Navy members. It was more playful and humorous than the first booklet,
but still steeped in sound yachting advice. By 1939, there were 2,000
Seuss Navy members. Their Admirals membership certificate read: He
is entitled to courtesies due his rank from mermaids, clam diggers, lobster
pot pullers and wild dinghy tamers. He must be accorded the official salute
at all times and is empowered to order the sun over the yardarm when the
occasion demands. This commission will continue in force as long as kangaroo fish, barnacles
and rocking chair sailors abound the seas. Full-fledged Seuss Navy Admirals included the
businessman and philanthropist Vincent Astor, the bandleader Guy Lombardo, and the famed
aviator Jacqueline Cochran. Secrets of the Deep, Vol. II was published while Ted was working
on his first childrens book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937).
In 1947, Ted produced one more booklet for Essomarine, The Log of the Good Ship. Its
foreword joked that the advice in the two previous Secrets of the Deep volumes had in fact
caused the incidence of minor marine disasters to skyrocket by several hundred per cent.
In a less than redemptive move, we have brought out this handsome, illuminated Ships Log
in the sincere hope and confidence that it will help carry on the cataclysmic work begun by
the earlier volumes.
F U L L- F L E DG ED S E U S S N AV Y A DM I R A LS
I N C L UD ED T H E B U S I N E S SMAN A ND
P H I L A N T H RO P I S T V I N C EN T AS TOR ,
T H E BA ND L E AD E R G U Y L OMBARDO
( P I C T U R ED ) , A N D T H E FAMED AV I ATO R
JACQU E L I N E C O CHRAN .
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Sea-Going Dilemma FishPLASTER, HORN, OIL, ON WOOD MOUNT
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E D I TO R I A L WOR K S
Magazine Editorial Cartoons
In the 1930s, Teds humor was everywhere. The country needed considerable cheering up,
and Life, New York Woman, College Humor, University, Vanity Fair, and Judge magazines
obliged with Dr. Seuss and others who could elicit laughter. Magazines sold for ten to thirty-five
cents; movies cost a quarter. These were the only affordable distractions in ten long years of
gloom. The difference between the two was that magazines could be sharedpassed around
and worn out. And they were. During this decade, Dr. Seuss found his audience.
Teds images were visually strong, often published as a full page or a two-page spread, many
making their point with little more than a brief caption. Some were thematic, as well, with
significant copy that gave more to think about while laughing. Either way, readers were
confronted with issues such as the displacement of Native Americans or the futility of social
climbing. They were even comically introduced to the idea of the magic bullet thirty years
before it would become a tragic part of our vernacular. Throughout, Ted was analyzing the
culture and commenting on it.
What is also intriguing about these cartoons is the early appearance of some of the Seuss
characters, which now enjoy literary immortality. Horton appears, and Yertle, too. Ted would
subsequently name Horton after his Dartmouth classmate Horton Conrad (25) and dedicate
Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories to another college buddy, Donald Bartlett (24).
Then there are the Seussian machines.
Teds propensity for the mechanically outrageous is obvious in Incidental Music for a New
Years Eve Party, which was published as a black-and-white center spread in Judge magazine
on January 2, 1932, and again in color in the Danish magazine Illustreret Familie-Journal,
circa 1932. This work embodies all the best of Teds musically exaggerated imagination and is
an early hallmark that set the stage for an elaborate history of made-up vehicles, machines,
and instruments. A close look reveals a quartet of xylophone players, whose wooden bars are
replaced by a crescendo of pots; quadruplets sharing a lone clarinet; a concertina requiring
both buttons and bellows pushers; percussionists keeping the orchestras beat with feathers;
a fish masquerading as a saxophone, or vice versa; a brass section with no horn bearing any
resemblance to another, except for a recurring tip of the hat to bagpipes; and a sideways
conductor happily soldiering on, eyes shut.
Thirty-four years later, the beloved 1966 adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
came onto our televisions and into our lives to stay. Its instrumental images are reminiscent of
the virtuoso creativity in Incidental Music. In the animated film, multiple musicians perform
on a single oversized horn. Every musical contraption is big and well amplifiedwheels, bells,
and whistles abound. This instance of Teds propensity for artistic recycling is notable because
not only had several years passed but the new rendition also crossed mediums from canvas to
collaborative filmmaking.
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Leading the ParadePEN AND INK
See page 345 for artwork in original context.
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348
Bunzel, Peter. Wacky World
of Dr. Seuss, Life (April 6,
1959): 107-108, 110, 113.
Burchell, Sam. Architectural
Digest Visits: Dr. Seuss,
Architectural Digest
(December 1978): 88-93.
Cahn, Robert. The Wonderful
World of Dr. Seuss,
The Saturday Evening Post
(July 6, 1957): 17-19, 42, 46.
Cohen, Charles D. The Seuss
the Whole Seuss and Nothing
but the Seuss. New York:
Random House, Inc., 2004.
Freeman, Donald.
The Nonsensical World of
Dr. Seuss, McCalls
(November 1964): 115, 200-201.
Freeman, Don. Dr. Seuss
From Then To Now,
San Diego Magazine
(May 1986): 132-139, 242-243.
Geisel, Audrey. The Secret
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