A couple days ago, in the comments on the Mother Goose plates I pictured, there was a question about a series of postcards for Kindergarten Shoes. I had never heard of these cards, but did some searching on the web and turned up an image of one (shown at right) - it's very interesting.This is clearly based on the W. W. Denslow image from Mother Goose, but I don't think it is a Denslow card. There is a signature of F. F. beneath the verse, which I would assume is the artist's signature. Also, the drawing just doesn't show quite the same level of skill as the Denslow. My personal thought is that if a card was going to be issued, it would use the same image as the book - of course, I could be completely wrong!
I was glad to have these cards pointed out - it's always fun to see something new. This does help to reinforce how popular Denslow's work was at the time - he spawned many imitators.
Denslow did do a number of postcards - I only have one, which I've pictured, from his Thanksgiving Humor series.
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Interesting... Personally I think I would still call these cards "Denslow" cards.
It seems misleading to call them done by a "Denslow imitator" since they are basically just a mirror-image tracing by some Kindergarten Shoes lithography hack.
I've seen books and cards where the artist seems to be clearly modeling their style on Denslow's. But this is simply adapting a Denslow image to knew purposes via tracing and shifting elements, etc.
Now whether they were officially licensed or ripped off is another question - either is still possible. There is a lot of fairly wretched MGM WIZARD stuff that is badly drawn, badly reproduced, etc.
I don't recall if the Denslow account book in the Hollister collection goes up to the MOTHER GOOSE period.
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