The slightly tawny postcards were adorable there on the table at the auction house. There were six of them, depicting the members of a wedding party, all stylishly dressed in what looked liked 1920s clothing.
Each person was identified along with an inscription:
The Mother in Law (But a Very Nice One). The Groom (God Help Him). The Bride (God Bless Her). The Minister (Solemn and Workmanlike). The Best Man (No Wedding Bells for Him). The Bridesmaid (Sweet as Peachblossom).
The characters showed attitudes from demure to huffiness tempered in part by the artist’s whimsical description of each of them. The postcards were published by Edward Gross Co., N.Y., and painted by C.H. Twelvetrees.
The postcards were all postally unused (in other words, they had not been written on or mailed) and in good collectible condition, except for some yellowing around the edges. I found the groom and mother-in-law selling for $19.95 each on one website. The bridesmaid was on eBay with a starting bid of $9.95.
I believe that I had come across some of Twelvetrees’ drawings at auction before, an old page from Pictorial Review magazine from circa 1910 or 1920.
Who was this artist C.H. Twelvetrees? I could find out little about him, except for several websites repeating the same information – right or wrong. In some cases, his identity was tied in with a Charles R. Twelvetrees. One poster on a forum said Charles R. did not exist, another said they were father and son. It was all ambiguous and very confusing.
Charles H., according to several sites, was born in 1888 and died in 1948. He was both an illustrator and an artist who designed magazine covers (for Pictorial Review and Collier’s, among others), postcards, jigsaw puzzles, mechanical cards, original prints and advertising ink blotters. Works attributed to him were signed either C. Twelvetrees or Twelvetrees or C.H. Twelvetrees. He apparently worked for several New York publishers, including Gross.
The website Doll Reference showed HeBee and SheBee dolls attributed to Charles H. and adapted from his “Twelvetrees Kids” series from Pictorial Review and various newspapers. The site said the dolls had a paper tag noting that they were Trademark Charles Twelvetrees and copyrighted in 1925. (A comic book site, among others, said that Twelvetrees Kids were done by Charles R.)
Charles H.’s drawings were of white children with round chubby cheeks and inscribed with whimsical messages, as with the wedding party. From1901-1911, he drew a comic strip about a hero duck called “Johnny Quack and the Van Cluck Twins” (some sites said it was “Van Cluck Sisters”) for the New York Herald newspaper. The website Barnacle Press has posted some of the comic strips. The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Collection site also has records of the strip.
In my search, I also found several postcards by Twelvetrees with black children (always with the red lips), including one on the website cardcow.com with an image matching those of his trademark children and the other very stereotypical.
I assume that the six postcards in the wedding party were part of a series. My auction buddy Janet scored the set along with about a half-dozen other postcards by another artist. A good buy.
I knew I heard that name before – from old movies – so I looked it up and I was thinking of Helen Twelvetrees who got her name from her husband Clark. One genealogy site I saw says that Charles was Clark’s father.
http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.twelvetrees/1.3/mb.ashx
“Charles Henry the artist had a sister called Flora Amelia (20 April 1874 – 19 Jul 1909). Charles’s son Clark married Helen Jurgens, who was Helen Twelvetrees the 1930s movie star.”
And listen to this from Helen’s IMDB:
“First husband, Clark Twelvetrees was a despairing alcoholic who tried to commit suicide by throwing himself out a seventh floor window. He was saved by landing on a second floor awning. The tabloids accused Helen of deliberately pushing him out the window and was only released from custody after her husband regained consciousness and was able to tell the truth.”
I enjoy reading about the lives of artists. So thanks Sherry. And I am just now starting to appreciate art depicting children (where before I thought of it as trivial somehow).