Book of Weavings Fredrich Froebel Antique Paper Designs

A folding book of children's paper weavings (and titled same, simply WEAVING) circa 1880.  Influenced by the teachings and research of Frederich Froebel.   The once humble craftwork is now recognized as among the most important influences on art movements to follow.  Klee and Mondrian come to mind, but still one can find examples of the technique at antique paper and ephemera shows.

Several years ago I posted a pair of large, free-standing works HERE, this is an "accordion" page presentation book with 20 examples mounted.  Last year the Ricco-Maresca gallery exhibited some splendid work, and a set of snowflakes in the same technique are HERE. 

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Impregnated Matches of Young Mr. Root

Original Matchboxes circa 1920 - 1930 from the collection assembled by young Lowell Root.  As you can see, Lowell traveled the world with matches.

My second post on the "striking" collection.  See MORE HERE

Books and affordable Ebooks by Jim Linderman are available HERE

Pole Climbing Daredevil Stunt Real Photo Postcard

A pole climbing daredevil makes it to the top with his partner supervising from the platform below.  Click to see spectators at lower right wondering if they are to witness a fall. Pole climbers have been documented for centuries, a few more are discussed HERE.  In this case, an early photographer has positioned himself to capture the moment, but there appears to be few folks for him to sell his RPPC to after the fellow descends.  Location unknown.

Daredevil Real Photograph Postcard Circa 1920 Collection Jim Linderman

EMEZÄRUGYÄR Space Wagon

Of all things to find in Western Michigan, an EMEZÄRUGYÄR Space Wagon from somewhere in the ex-Soviet Union.  I had a friend's child put batteries in it, and it works like a charm.


Space Toy of Tin  Collection Jim Linderman

Another Snapshot of Thing

CLICK TO ENLARGE THING

Another snapshot of THING (this time with hanging laundry) sent over by a wonderful vintage photography dealer. THING and links to friends HERE

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Untitled "Head" Polaroid Instant Photograph

Anonymous Polaroid Instant Photograph No Date Collection Jim Linderman

The Famous Painting of Professor Woodruff AKA Nude Lady Held Up in the Lake (September Morn)

The Hold Up, Professor Woodruff's masterpiece.  Speculating here, I am going to guess Woodruff painted his dream, or a vision, or an obsession.  I hope it was not painted from life, as it appears to show a man holding a gun on a nude woman, And Woodruff seems pretty darn proud of himself.  I have checked the inventories of some lauded institutions with no luck.  Does anyone out there know where Woodruff's rough masterpiece ended up?
(Just for the record, see the link HERE)

Real Photo Postcard circa 1915 collection Jim Linderman

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Woody the Amazing Articulated Folk Art Man collection Jim Linderman

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Hand-carved articulated figure (doll) with handmade clothes, miniature leather belt and safety pin tie-clasp.  Circa 1940.  Collection Jim Linderman

From the Forthcoming Exhibition "HEADS" Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Forthcoming HEADS exhibition

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Limited Edition Lithographs Celebrate the Armory Show

CERTAIN to increase in value, Limited Edition Lithographs currently available at 46 cents each.

Books and Ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE

Gun Culture Vernacular Photographs at the House of Mirth

Collection Clare Goldsmith

That our unfortunate national obsession with guns starts young is obvious, but you will see few better examples than the miniature exhibition HERE on Stacy Waldman's excellent blog House of Mirth.  Stacy curated a show from some prominent collectors, and the images are authentic and frightening.  Great stuff, and the site always is.  Put it on your list of regular visits.

LINK to the House of Mirth is HERE

How Much is a Wiggles Worth? Smith Wigglesworth Sky Pilot Preacher

Reverend Smith Wigglesworth tries a new trick:  dropping his invitations from a bi-plane like the propaganda they were!   Good thing the company now selling his four-pound "complete sermons"  doesn't try that trick…it would be like the time they dropped turkeys from the sky on WKRP.

Anyway, a scarce little pamphlet from the sky which is worth exactly one wiggles worth today…but then find another.
 
Wigglesworth was a plumber who suffered from glossolalia (the clinical name for speaking in tongues)  but it was in the days before medication for schizophrenia, so he became a preacher.  This was shortly after meeting and marrying his wife, Polly Featherstone, a Salvation Army preacher. She taught the plumber to read the Bible, and he always said it was the only book he ever read.  That is typical of his open-mindedness throughout his entire career.
 
What a career it was.  Wigglesworth raised folks from the dead (!) including at one point his now dead wife Polly!  He claimed to have brought no less than three, but maybe as many as twenty-three departed souls back to life.  One of those he brought back was a bitter woman  who,  when raised out of her coffin,  slapped the preacher in the face saying she was having a better time in heaven. 

He was a "laying on of hands" faith-healer, but when Swedish authorities (onto the ruse) denied him, he cured Swede's illnesses by inventing a technique by which the informed could "lay hands on themselves."  He also distributed blessed hankies, but I haven't been able to find out how much he charged for them.

Wikipedia claims Wigglesworth would not sleep at night unless he had saved at least one soul that day.   One night he rose troubled from bed and went out looking for a drunk to convince on the spot so he could get some damn sleep.

There is a website devoted to selling Smith's dribbles, but I'm not going to link to them.  Why help?  I will gladly allow them to use this scarce sky-pamphlet if they can bring either Old Man Smith Wigglesworth OR his wife Polly back to cure my lumbago.
 
Message from Sky Pilot Smith Wigglesworth.  Original "flying tract" announcement circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

THIS IS A POST ON THE OLD TIME RELIGION blog as well.

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Farming on the MOON by Anonymous Who Painted the Future for Topps? Space Art 1958

Farming on the Moon?  Earthshine love!  All From Target Moon, and I can't find out who painted them.  A hot debate rages in the nerd community about whether the set of Topps trading cards known as Target Moon were produced in 1958 or 1967, with salmon backs or with blue backs, the wrappers they came in, whether gum was included,  how often they were reissued, what countries they were distributed in,  blah blah. I say "nerd" with no rancor, trading card collectors...but you KNOW the only one worth having is Honus Wagner, and he never went to the moon.

But no one identifies the artist!
 
I came across one Chesley Bonstell, who appeared promising…but I think he paints better. 

I mean, come on.  They even know the name of the space dog. 

The set is fascinatingly fascinating…and while one might think them goofy, consider they were done at least ten years before we landed on the moon.  Whoever did them got things pretty close, especially as I don't think NASA was sharing much with the Ruskies back then. 
 
There have even been auctions of the original artwork with no illustrator identified. 

Check out these earthbound goons racing to recover the rocket!  HAW!
 
One of the great mysteries of space!  If anyone knows out there in space art land, feel free to write in.  

BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY THE AUTHOR AVAILABLE HERE 

UPDATE:  Suggestions from a kindly expert, as follows:  Definitely not Bonestell... I think he was too high profile (and priced accordingly) for the cheapskates at Topps. There are at least two or three artists involved... the "Martian Dust Storm" looks like it COULD be Norm Saunders. The rest look familiar, but nothing I can place.

Comic Foreground Novelty Vintage Photographs ARGENTINA TINTAMARRESQUE The New Dull Tool Dim Bulb Book

Argentina Tintamarresque!  Comic Foreground Vintage Photographs.  You know the drill by now.  The newest Book from House of Dull Tool Dim Bulb, and it is only $5.99 in Ebook form, and $21.95 in paperback.  66 pages of fun! Cutout novelty screens were invented by the same guy who first painted dogs playing poker. That astounding fact may just be enough for you to purchase this, the most curious of books, but I will throw in a few more encouragements. One, all the photographs included in the book predate 1930, and two, all are from Argentina. Cassius Marcellus Coolidge is credited with creating "comic foregrounds" which put a sitter behind a caricatured painting. Staple of carnivals, "just off the exit" rest stops and anywhere one wants to have fun looking stupid. Argentina Tintamarresque, as odd as it may seem, collects tons of them.  Why?  Why NOT?

Most are real photo postcards, but there are snapshots.  Not only are the futuristic modes of transportation all wrong, the folks perched behind them seldom smile, as these are so old folks still thought you had to refrain from moving.  In glorious South American sepia, each a little gem.

Argentina Tintamarresque is OUT OF PRINT!  Current books available under the Dull Tool Dim Bulb imprint from Blurb are HERE

Candid Charlie Comic Books Paparazzi Photographica from B. Gordon Guth

Comic Book Photographica  and the first paparazzi Candid Charlie of Target Comics!

For the record, I do not collect comic books, and I do not own those shown above.  For this post, I defer to the experts Steven Thompson and My Comic Shop, though in this case even they don't know too much.  Both are linked below.  Let's call this a query.  Who the hell was B. Gordon Guth, the artist who conjured up "Candid Charlie" a red-headed kid with camera?
 
Every boy with a handheld is Candid Charlie now, but back when these came out, one had to lug it around their neck.  I guess the stereotype of Japanese tourists snapping photos is finally retired too…now that we all take too many pictures with our cellphones.  But back then, a shutterbug was nerdy and with thick glasses to go with his hobby.

By far the best place to find anything about Guth is Steven Thompson's blog Four Color Shadows.  Mr. Thompson is the expert (truly) but even he seems stumped. He does reproduce an entire story HERE. 

Candid Charlie appeared in Target Comics, sometimes as a cover model, and the rest of the time within.  Some of the covers of Target are so cool they almost make me wish I collected them…but not all were done by B. Gordon Guth.  In fact, it looks like once in a while (for "composite" covers) Candid Charlie was drawn by another artist…unless the ginger head bespeckled hero of B. Guth was a generic type.  Note no camera on Charlie on the cover of "4 Most Comics" as he, or his look-a-like is hurled to the sand.

In one issue, a three-headed Charlie has to decide between a dame and his Brownie.  Take the dame Charlie.

There is another Charlie looking dude slumped down after sniffing ether too, but it is drawn by Nina Albright.  Nina was super cool.  Check out this issue of Target with Kit Carter obfuscating the eyes of the bad guy with his sand wedge!

Another Guth cover shows a seemingly now grown-up Candid Charlie shooting a shark while the world's smallest one-man speedboat heads towards shore.

The census lists a B. Gordon Guth of the Bronx born 1910.  I reckon that would be him.

As I said, I'm no comic historian, but Guth seems to have been hooked up with L. B. Cole, who I wrote about HERE and Art Helfant, like Nina both far better known.

Steven Thompson's fantastic comic book site Four Color Shadows is HERE
My Comic Shop (which has a few of these in stock) is HERE



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Burlesque Queen Private Photographs of Lynne O'Neill The New Book

PRIVATE PHOTOGRAPHS OF A BURLESQUE QUEEN : LYNNE O'NEILL the ORIGINAL GARTER GIRL  by Jim Linderman.

NOW AVAILABLE!  Ebook $5.99  Paperback and Hardcover as listed. 

ORDER AND PREVIEW BOOK HERE    ORDER EBOOK HERE

Snapshot of a Pin Up Reflection in Black and White Identified!

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 A pinup snapshot!  We can speculate. True love on the part of the shutterbug? An artist trying to document his painting in print? But guess what we need NOT speculate...as seen here, that the image comes from a 1952 issue of Esquire. Thanks to PROJECT B and Barbara Levine, vintage photography dealer extraordinaire for the snapshot. Thanks to Google and my well-trained eye for gams for solving my puzzle. Original Snapshot 1952 Collection Jim Linderman 

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Handmade Mug Paper Mache Mask Collection Jim Linderman

A handmade mask, no date  Collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Articulated Man Wood Carved Sculpture Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Folk Art Carved Articulated Man Circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

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"Pa, The Parade is Coming!" The Old West Arrives!

Anonymous Photograph, circa 1890  Collection Jim Linderman