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To continue our notes on comics and cubists:

1. Modernism came to America in 1913 via the Armory Show. One early response was this Mamma’s Little Angel page by Penny Ross , circa 1913 or 1914, where the lead character has “a cubist nightmare in the studio of Monsieur Paul Vincetn Cezanne Van Gogen Ganguin.” (The page can be found in the great Smithsonian book edited by Blackbeard and Williams.) This page is an early example of a common joke, later repeated by Frank King and Cliff Sterrett, where American domesticity and “normality” is turned upside down by modern art.

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The other day I received the kind of email that I always dream of, to be frankly nerdy about it. Herbert (“The Wigglemuch”) Crowley was  the most mysterious cartoonist I documented in Art Out of Time. And he mostly remained so after publication. But two weeks ago a woman in Zurich identified herself as Crowley’s niece and sent along some pictures and info about Crowley and said she’d be in NYC in a week and would I like to meet with her. Well I did, and we met, and, yes folks, there is a Herbert Crowley archive. Not a huge one, and not quite enough to fill out his entire life, but quite a bit, including voluminous sketchbooks, a scrapbook, passports, and more. Now, when I published Art Out of Time, I knew nothing, not even birth and death dates. I know a whole lot more now, and as I learn yet more I’ll update you, my tiny, tiny public. (more…)

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A received an email this morning from a nice fellow named Max Mose, who discovered this tidbit about Herbert Crowley (“famous” for The Wigglemuch, as featured in Art Out of Time) in
Popular Prints of the Americas (A. Hyatt Mayor, Crown Publishers, 1973), which reads: “Crowley was born near London in 1873. Though he studied singing in Paris, he could never bring himself to face an audience. Then, while working in a mine, he discovered that he could draw. His late-found career took him eventually to the New York Herald, where he drew the Wigglemuch from about 1910 to 1914. In his solitary imagination, this creature with no legs on its far side became more actual than anybody he met on the street. Crowley could tell you exactly when it slept, what it did and did not eat, how it laughed, and that it whistled like you or me.” Well, this is all news to me! The actual dates of the run are off, but the rest of it… who knows? Sounds like the kind of thing an artist might write about himself. I know that he had some shows of his artwork on 57th St. in NYC in the 20s… and that the Met has some works on paper of his in storage that I have, to my shame, not gone to request, but beyond that, well, I cast wide nets, but don’t tend to dig deep holes. But in this case I should. Thanks, Max!