Theater Postcards

A number of postcards were produced as souvenirs - and advertising - for the 1903 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz. I showed one several posts ago, featuring Fred Stone as the Scarecrow, and here are two more, featuring the Poppy scene.

The Poppy Field was one of the highlights of the show, and the finale of Act One. In the tinted color postcard, we see (from the left) Sir Dashemoff Daily (the Poet Laureate) and Dorothy meeting up with another group of characters - Pastoria (the exiled King of Oz), his fiancee Tryxie Tryfle, the Lion, and Imogene the cow. They are disguised as a one ring circus! As you can see, there are a number of characters in the show that are unfamiliar to fans of the book or the movie. The Poppies were portrayed by chorus girls, with large flower hats, who sang and swayed as their scent overpowered the travelers.

 In the second postcard, the Snow Queen is seen and the Poppy Field has been destroyed by snow - a device that was re-used in the 1939 MGM film. On stage this was achieved in a transformation scene, a quick change from the live poppy field to the frozen flowers.

The "handwritten" inscription on the color postcard was actually printed as part of the card - I've seen it on at least one other example, beneath a different image. A bit of advertising for the show!

A Golden Variant

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz seems to have gone through more variations in appearance than most of the other Oz books.  I think the most interesting change occurred in the mid 1920's, when some copies of the book were once again bound with a golden label. The copy I'm showing has a Christmas inscription to Winston Powers, reading "Friday, December 25 1925 - from Daddy and Mother". I always enjoy seeing vintage gift inscriptions!

The book was originally published by Reilly & Britton in 1908, with a lavish metallic gold background on the cover label, and a silver vignette of the Tin Woodman on the spine. The silver was the first thing to go, and within a few years, the gold on the label was replaced with a plain yellow background. The stamping of the publisher's name on the spine varies throughout the printing history. Eventually, after the publisher's name changed to Reilly & Lee, the figure of Dorothy was replaced by the words "Popular Edition" which were later dropped from the label leaving the Wizard on his own. Different vignettes are found on the spine, a special slightly smaller format was published for Sears, and finally new cover designs were developed. Below, I show a few of the many variations - there are more!

By the mid 1920's, it wasn't likely that Reilly & Lee would suddenly revive printing the more costly and elaborate label. It seems likely to me that someone simply turned up a supply of the original labels at the bindery and decided to make use of them!

Strasheela

This is Strasheela, the Scarecrow character in the Russian series of Oz books. I'm not a collector of foreign editions of the Oz series, but I couldn't resist this postcard.

Oz is known as Magic Land in Russia, and the series is popular - but the characters and stories might take an American by surprise!

Alexander Volkov published The Wizard of the Emerald City in 1939. This was a loose translation of L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with various changes, additions and omissions. In the 1960's, Volkov began publishing sequels to his book, creating an alternative Ozian universe. Magic Land has its own unique characters and stories, quite different from the original Baum series. Volkov wrote six Magic Land books, and other authors have continued his series.

I don't read Russian, and have no idea what the back of the postcard says. But it's always fun to see a different version of a familiar character!

Oz Jewelry

This is a funny little piece I recently ran across. It's a charm bracelet, made as a premium for the 1964 cartoon television special Return to Oz. The figures are based on the cartoon characters and represent the Wizard, Dandy the Lion, Rusty the Tin Man, Dorothy, Toto, the Wicked Witch, and Socrates the Scarecrow. The figures are nicely modeled and detailed, and the bracelet is really rather heavy!

The same characters were used earlier, in a 1961 cartoon series Tales of the Wizard of Oz. The characters are drawn more crudely in these earlier animated shorts. Here's a clip from the cartoon series - not quite the Oz I'm familiar with, but very much of its own time!



The bracelet is small, but it works well for adding some bling to Tik-Tok!

Polychrome's Return

Our stained glass rendition of Polychrome returning to her rainbow is finished!

After passing through the stages of design, cutting, fitting, and painting, there are still several steps before a window is complete. We use a copper foil technique, which means each glass piece must be wrapped around the edge with copper foil, which is what holds everything in place after soldering. In the photo below, I'm foiling on the left and soldering on the right. After soldering, the window is cleaned and the lead lines are darkened. Finally, the window is ready to frame or install!

Polychrome's Progress

The Polychrome window is progressing nicely. Here's a shot showing the start of laying out the rainbow. There's quite a way to go yet!

Another picture of me working on painting the Rainbow's head. Glass paint is basically powdered minerals mixed with gum arabic and water. When fired in a kiln at the right temperature, the paint fuses into the glass surface.

Here's a kiln full of rainbow faces waiting to be fired. Glass always needs to be tested for firing first, as some glasses can turn opaque in the kiln. After going through the work of painting, you don't want to find a surprise like that! 

It's all moving along! See here for Part 3.

Margaret Wynne

Another Rand McNally title with a W. W. Denslow cover - Margaret Wynne, by Adeline Sergeant, published in 1898. Denslow's trademark seahorse signature can be seen at the lower right, outside the border of the title box. This is a rather worn copy, and the colors appear a bit dull. A fresher copy might be more striking!

This isn't one of Denslow's more imaginative efforts, and it uses elements seen in a number of his other cover designs - namely, the coat of arms crest and the decorative fleur-de-lis, as well as a wrap-around design.

Adeline Sergeant also wrote A Valuable Life, which received a much more evocative treatment from Denslow in 1897.

Polychrome Window

I've wanted to do a stained glass piece based on this illustration by John R. Neill, from 1909's The Road to Oz, for a long time. The image shows Polychrome, the rainbow's daughter, returning to her rainbow - her father scoops her up as her sisters welcome her back. The illustration is quite elaborate, and makes this an interesting challenge to translate into glass.

The first step is drawing the pattern which will be used for cutting the glass and assembling the window. This involves breaking the image down into individual pieces that are capable of being cut from glass. Facial details will be painted and fired - this window will include a lot of painting!

The Rainbow's head has had its first firing - shading and color are built up through multiple layers and firings.

Here's the finished cartoon - together with a piece of glass that certainly looks like a rainbow to me! See here for the next steps in constructing this window - Part 2

Denslow's Christmas Tales

On December 14th, 1902, the New York Herald published four comic pages by W. W. Denslow. These were Denslow's Christmas Tales, and used artwork Denslow was preparing for his series of picture books published in 1903, with additional titles in 1904. I've recently obtained a set of these pages, courtesy of Cindy at Wonderful Books of Oz .





The four stories are told in verse, and Denslow has revised each one from the traditional version, to remove the "horrors" of the original. Hence, Red Riding Hood's wolf is tamed, Humpty Dumpty Jr. is hardboiled to prevent breakage, the Giant becomes a sideshow exhibit, and little Golden Hair becomes housekeeper for the Three Bears and stays with them. The same changes occur in the picture book versions, but the stories are rewritten in prose with additional illustrations. 

The newspaper pages are bright and colorful, and would certainly have caught the eye of a young reader. These were part of a Sunday Christmas Edition supplement - Red Riding Hood was the cover page, Humpty Dumpty and Three Bears were the interior pages 4 and 5, and Jack and the Beanstalk was the final page. Modern newspapers certainly don't compare to this!

Land of Oz Library

I couldn't resist showing this piece - unfortunately it's not in my collection, just passing through my hands to another collector!

This is the boxed Wonderful Land of Oz Library, released in 1939 by Rand McNally. This set contained reprints of the six Little Wizard stories (two to a book), and Junior Editions (or adaptations) of six of L. Frank Baum's full length Oz books. The individual books turn up frequently, but you don't often see a full boxed set - this is the first one I've seen in person!

Beware the Wheelers!

Here's another page by Skottie Young from the award winning Eric Shanower/Skottie Young adaptations of the Oz books, published by Marvel comics. This one comes from Ozma of Oz, and shows Dorothy finding an ominous warning scratched into the sand on an unfamiliar beach. And very good advice too!

Also, a pair from The Marvelous Land of Oz - here we see the companions captured by General Jinjur - and their escape in the flying Gump!

I obviously enjoy Skottie's artwork, and his take on the Oz characters and situations. I also think it's one of the better opportunities out there for acquiring published Oz illustrations!

Louise

I haven't had a new W. W. Denslow cover design  to show in quite a while. This one is a little different - The Story of Louise, by De Fontages and translated by Deshler Welch. I don't think I've ever run across the name Deshler before!

Although it falls right into the style of the covers Denslow designed between 1896 and 1898 for Rand McNally, this was done in 1901 for a different publisher - the Royal Columbia Press. It's a lovely wraparound design, featuring a woman with a parasol viewing sailboats on a river. Denslow's seahorse is easily spotted by the hem of the woman's dress. On the rear cover, the woman is seen from afar, walking with a man toward a town in the distance.

I think the color scheme of soft blues and pink on a tan ground is particularly nice!

Another Ozzy Mystery

After the photo last week of Montgomery & Stone, I thought I'd share a couple odd little photos I ran across online while looking through the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Here we have an unidentified pair of performers, in costume as the Scarecrow and, could that possibly be, Jack Pumpkinhead? These are from a group of photos printed on a contact sheet, with no information other than the name of the photographer, White Studios in New York City. They were filed under Wizard of Oz, but I don't think this has anything to do with the Broadway Wizard. There is no date to help with identification, and these could easily be an unknown pair of vaudeville performers. (Note - see the comments below for identification of these performers).

This certainly isn't Fred Stone and David Montgomery, and I know of no occasions when these two characters would have been together in a stage production - if that actually is Jack Pumpkinhead. There is a definite resemblance to the makeup style used in The Wogglebug, the unfortunate show that never made it to Broadway, and featured Jack Pumpkinhead as seen on the right.







 
The Scarecrow is clearly copied from the Fred Stone character, with a notably different hat, but the other figure is harder to place. It's a bizarre and intriguing couple of images!

Here's a final shot, showing the two performers in more standard outfitting, as well as in character. Another little mystery waiting to be solved...

 

Montgomery & Stone & Friend

(Note - Since posting this, the actors in this photo have been re-identified! See this post for further details.)

After all the excitement surrounding the recent new Oz movie, here's a flashback to the first theatrical Oz adaptation - a wonderful and unusual photo of Fred Stone and David Montgomery as the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman in 1903.




Fred Stone's makeup has always intrigued me. He drew his Scarecrow eyes on very deliberately, and his right eye always is drawn through the center of his real eye. The left eye, which is larger, encircles his real left eye. Both eyes have dots in the center, leading me to wonder - did he perform with his eyes mostly closed in order to create the effect of the Scarecrow eyes?

 In the photo he is busy oiling the Tin Woodman through the character's funnel hat. I'm not certain how effective that would be on the character's joints, but it seems to have been a popular pose for the pair! I have not seen this particular photo before, and at a large 11" x 14", it makes a wonderful memento of the famous pair in their Broadway debut.

There is a third character in the photo who is quite a star in himself. For reasons unknown, the Tin Man is holding a Teddy Bear at gunpoint. The fascinating part of this is that this has to be one of the earliest Teddy Bears made. The famous hunting trip taken by Teddy Roosevelt, which gave rise to the creation of the stuffed toy, happened in November of 1902, and the first bears were offered by Morris Mitchtom of Brooklyn, New York in February, 1903.
 The Steiff company of Germany also produced their first bears of this style in 1903. L. Frank Baum would eventually bring Teddy Bears to Oz in his 1917 book The Lost Princess of Oz, with the creation of Bear Center.

The Wizard of Oz opened in New York in January of 1903, so our stars were right on top of the trend! Perhaps they're reenacting their own version of Roosevelt's hunting trip!

Hare-Brained Bunnies

Here for Easter is a magazine page of artwork by John R. Neill - The Hare-Brained Bunnies' Easter Party. These wonderful vignettes are a great collection of the Neill rabbits of this period!

This piece was published in Pictorial Review magazine in April, 1918. The original artwork for the top drawing of the rabbit band (or Pussyfoot Chorus), is still in the Neill family (see image below), and was featured in Illustration magazine in 2006. At that point it was listed as an unknown magazine illustration, but we can see how it was used. It's a pity that the Pictorial Review page wasn't printed in full color!

These drawings are closely related to Neill's cover of Pictorial Review magazine from 1916, and the series of bunny musician postcards that seem to date from the early 1920's.

In the 1922 Oz book, Kabumpo in Oz, one of the main characters is a rabbit named Wag, who could have stepped out of this series. I don't think I've run across any of these bunnies after that point in the early 1920's, which is too bad - they're great little characters!




I'm particularly fond
of The Egg Dance!

New Oz Art

One of the results of a new Oz movie opening, has been several gallery shows of Oz-inspired artwork. It's always fun to see different perceptions of familiar characters and stories!






There are two shows running currently that I am aware of. One is Not in Kansas Anymore: A Tribute to The Wizard of Oz at Nucleus, a gallery in Alhambra, CA. If you click on this link, you can visit their website and view the pieces that are on display and for sale.

Another exhibit called Visions of Oz: A Celebration of Art from Over the Rainbow is being held in Los Angeles, at the Heritage Square Museum. There doesn't seem to be an online gallery to view for this show, but a number of pieces from the exhibit are being run through eBay, by Creature Features. These can be seen by clicking on this link, and clicking the eBay auction link at the top of the web page.

I couldn't resist adding this small set of the four friends, as painted by artist Tony Lombardo, to my collection. They look like they stopped in at a photo booth while visiting the Emerald City!

These particular images were also used in the advertising for the show. Love those green glasses!