Featured Help w/Identifying Large Mid-Century Sketch w/People

hi everyone. i picked up this sketch in a thrift store this passed week because it's slow around here and it looks kinda' interesting to me. the piece was matted and framed under glass nicely probably 60 or more years ago. that always gets me to wondering why did they go to the trouble of preserving this? anyway, the exposed art(not including matting and frame) measures 19.75"x17.25". i've taken it out of the frame and there's absolutely no additional information to be found. the sketch was done on very fine tissue like paper--possibly rice paper--and there are remnants of an earlier tape job along the edges. i'm hoping someone out there might recognize the signature or artist's mark. any help will be greatly appreciated...thanks

 

Please post photographs of the matted work in its frame from both front and back if you have them. (Mats and frames are helpful for dating.) This works looks earlier than Mid-Century. 1930s I'd think from the woman's clothing. It appears to be done on sketch paper. The male figures are much more successful than the female. Could well be a student work. As this is an international forum, it would be helpful to know in what part of the world you found it.

Debora

 

hi, it was thinking it looks more 40s or early 50s based on their attire. but it could be earlier. i'm in Sacramento California, but, of course, i've found things from across the globe here in Sac, so there's no telling where it might be from. i don't have any pics of the frame, but it looks to be a simple gilded wood frame from the 50s. the backside was covered with paper. this sketch was carefully matted and framed with a backing piece of heavy paper behind the sketch, probably due to the delicate and somewhat transparent nature of the paper on which it was drawn. here's some more pics of the matting front and back as well as the bottom portion of the paper itself.

 

Nice piece.

 

That is a beautiful piece, obviously done by a trained professional. The paper is tracing paper, likely one of many iterations, and/or for a final transfer. By the fluid sketching and caricatured faces and bodies, I would say you're looking at an illustrator. It has really lovely line work. WM or WWL?

 

I agree. The shoes too.

 

Looks to be Conté crayons/sticks as the drawing medium to my eye. I used those ions ago in life drawing class in college and they have very distinctive characteristics. I guess it could be a hard pastel stick, but Conté doesn't smear as easily.

Maybe the artist was making a statement about the woman's size compared to the two men. Because if she stood up, she'd dwarf them. Especially the guy in the back.

 

Legs all the way to her shoulders, so to speak.

 

Yes, they look like OLD STYLE conte' crayons, not as fluid as what has been made in last 30 or so years. Clothing looks 1940s to me too. The hands are exceptionally well done, but the perspective on the woman is off, as Sabre also mentioned, thank you. I think it's a student done sketch, a good student, but still a student.

 

yep!

 

hi, thank you all for your input. i noticed the same issue with the woman's legs. having looked at it up close, i do believe it is conte' crayon as well. my initial take on this scene was that it was some sort of class drawing depicting a lower or working class man(the fellow on the left) seated next to a better dressed woman(turned away and ignoring him as she reads), while another, better dressed gentleman sits opposite them kind of clutching his bag. for me it conjures an image of the subway in New York, but who knows. locally, a friend i showed it to thought it looked German. i'm still hoping someone might recognize the signature, but it doesn't look like it can be identified...thanks again.

 

Looks like someone was sketching on the bus....as I used to do when I was going to Art School.

 

The style is caricatured on propose. Proportions are elongated (the long neck and dropped shoulder on the woman is a nice one) and deliberate choices were made in the abstraction. The woman is also sitting further down than the man, and more forward. He may be on an arm rest or it could be to fill the composition.

 

at 19.75"x17.25" it would be a large sketch in this setting, but who knows? the more input i get on this, the more it becomes a mystery.

 

I'm sure they probably started with some gesture sketches from life to base an image on, as that's standard practice, but this definitely looks like working an image for a piece. That size is correct in that case as illustrators always worked much larger to size down for reproduction.