In typical Neill fashion, the appliances all have faces and, in many
cases, additional limbs. In fact, this kitchen looks like it could be in a
suburb of Utensia, the village of kitchen implements visited by Dorothy
in the 1910 book The Emerald City of Oz.
The row of eight electrical plugs under the window looks a little dodgy to me, but clearly the modern housekeeper has been freed from much of her labor!
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Now that's my dream kitchen! (The lady even looks a little like Queen Ann of Oogaboo, doesn't she.)
That's right - with the flick of a switch it all gets done!
There's also live furniture drawn by Neill in THE ROYAL BOOK OF OZ.
I'm very curious, (and I'm sure you know the answer to this.) How is it possible to tell that this drawing is by Neill if there's no signature? I'm sure there is a way, since I've seen many other artworks of his identified independent of a signature, but I'd be interested to know how that's done.
In the case of this particular piece, it was purchased from the collection of the Neill family. But there are many pieces of art by Neill that do not bear his signature - in fact, many of the Oz book drawings are not signed. He was prolific and produced a large amount of work for magazines, like this piece, and he wasn't very consistent about signing his work. Also, he used a variety of signatures over the years. Aside from all that, this piece practically screams Neill, from the style of pen work, the look of the humanized appliances and the central female figure. Even without signatures, his work is usually fairly easy to identify by his style.
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