Beschreibung:

Title: 1938-39 Black Cartoonist's First Black Themes - within the pages of Esquire magazine Author: Campbell, E. Simms Place: Publisher: Esquire Date: 1938-39 Description: Includes: 4 pages of Campbell cartoons removed from the August and December 1938 and September 1939 issues of Esquire; and the full Esquire issue of April 1938, for which Campbell both wrote and illustrated a 4-page article about his trip to Haiti, with an additional 3 pages of color illustrations, a Portfolio of Haitian Sketches. Campbell’s front-cover illustrations for Judge and other humor magazines in the early 1930s, offered above, were probably the earliest work by an African-American artist featured in a popular national periodical. But no Black figures appeared in Campbell’s early work at a time when most national magazine illustrations still depicted Blacks in racial stereotypes. Meanwhile, Campbell’s career took off when, in 1933, he began a 25 year association with the new Esquire magazine, for which he created its pop-eyed cover mascot. While Campbell, throughout the Depression era, had close ties to Harlem Renaissance culture – illustrating a novel about Haiti by Anna Bontemps and Langston Hughes, a book of poetry by Sterling Brown, brochures for the Cotton Club, and a spectacular “Nightclub Map of Harlem” - not until 1938 did he begin to incorporate Black figures and themes into his own general magazine work. Of the four Esquire pages in this group, two are merely humorous and whimsical, but the third depicts Harlem street scenes to accompany the Sterling Brown poem “Glory, Glory”, and the fourth is a striking portrait of a Black music club. The illustrated Haiti article may be his first (and only) stab at illustrating his own words. Lot Amendments Condition: Light edge wear; very good. Item number: 231376