The World of Tasha Tudor

              

Tasha Tudor Newsletter
June 2010
Volume 4 Number 5

All contents © 2010 Cellar Door Books, Concord, NH
In This Issue
PROBATE PROCEEDINGS
SPECIALS
ORIGINAL ART OF TASHA TUDOR

17920

 
 
 

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TASHA TUDOR
 PROBATE PROCEEDINGS

The estate of Tasha Tudor continues to be discussed at the Brattleboro, Vermont, Probate Court. Currently, the administrator and judge are being asked to decide two questions.  One regards the validity of Tudor's signatures on late-life documents and her state of mind in signing them.  The other discussion questions the true ownership of three Tudor copyrights: Corgiville Fair, A Time to Keep, and The Great Corgiville Kidnapping.  We will report significant developments as they occur.

There is an interesting piece of historic recollection in the probate file.  Tasha Tudor's attorney Jean Brewster Giddings wrote a four-page letter to the estate's administrator on December 9, 2009.  She answers certain questions about the establishment of the business Tasha Tudor and Family, Inc. and the use of Tudor's copyrights.  Attorney Gidding's letter also reflects on the Jenny Wren Press and Corgi Cottage Industries, and Ms Tudor's involvement with thos entities.

 
"SPECIALS" BUTTON ON OUR WEB PAGE
 

We've added a new button to our web page.  Click on SPECIALS and we will advise you of unadvertised discounts on merchandise.  The items will change from time to time.  Right now we have Summer Wreath, 10 blank packaged cards with envelopes.  Copyright Jenny Wren Press 1994

 
summer wreath cards



Pictured below is some of the Original Art we have available in our Spring Sale. 
 
 

Indian Gentleman
(item # 18165)

Art Little Princess 
 
 
 
 

Crachets' Christmas Dinner (item # 18164)

18164
 
 
 
 
 
Emma Birdwhistle
(item # 26204)

Emma Birdwhistle
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Photo by Richrd Brown
Tasha's empty chair

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days
; 
 

James Russel Lowell.  "The vision of Sir Launfal"

At Cellar Door Books we hope that each of the month's days will be perfect for you. 
ORIGINAL ART OF TASHA TUDOR

Tasha Tudor was a prolific artist.  There is no count of the number of pieces she created in her 92 years.  I once calculated that she may have painted or drawn as many as 15,000 pieces of art.  Her earliest published art consists entirely of watercolor paintings as seen in Pumpkin Moonshine, Alexander the Gander, The County Fair, A Tale for Easter, Snow Before Christmas, The White Goose, Dorcas Porkus, and Linsey Woolsey.  Beginning with Mother Goose (1944) Tudor provided black and white pencil illustrations in addition to the charming watercolors which people already knew and loved.  Christmas card illustrations date from the 1940s.   And there were always incidental paintings - little things used to fill the corner of a page, or perhaps a small illustration for an endpaper.


Edward B. Hills and his niece Gretchen McKeever accounted for 1152 items in a rare booklet they published in 1975.   A Partial List of Original Water Colors, Drawings, Oils, and Pastels by Tasha Tudor, Together with the names of the owners of most of the pieces lists individual paintings by book and page on which they were reproduced.  In most cases, Hills and McKeever list the owner of a piece in 1975.   This booklet is one of the most difficult pieces of Tudor bibliography to locate.  This is because it wasn't sold; it was largely donated to major research libraries so that the information would be part of the public record for Tudor research.  Try your state university to find a local copy.


A Partial List


Many pieces of Tudor art were never sold by Hills; their ownership wasn't tracked through his Dutch Inn Gift Shop.  This includes some pieces from the 1940s and 1950s that Tudor sold to collectors directly from her home.  And of course, Hills wasn't present for the last 35 productive years of Tudor's life. There is no list of all that later art.  In addition to her contract book art with established publishers, Tudor also created separate work for a variety of groups either as a gift or on commission.  Examples of the latter are a pastoral print painted for the Chester, Pa., SPCA.   Corgi Kisses, Megan's Market and Blowing Bubbles were individual paintings commissioned by The Corgi Shop in Lanesboro, Mass.   Tasha's Herb Garden was a gift to the National Herb Garden located at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.  There was a bookplate commissioned for a Pennsylvania lady, although that was done in the 1960s and is recorded in Hills and McKeever's booklet.   A Partial List ... also records a rare oil portrait that Tasha painted of her daughter Efner. 
A form of Tasha Tudor's original art seldom seen appears in individual letters to correspondents. She was fond of adding a drawing to a letter - a sketch of a child, or perhaps some busy corgi dogs.   Such drawings can also be found added to books, often with personalized dedications to a friend or collector.  Then there are the large sketch sheets Tudor created at public speaking engagements.  These charcoal drawings on inferior newsprint were sometimes auctioned at the end of a public appearance allowing several collectors to take home Tudor art for a moderate price.  


A future scholar will clearly need to research and consult a vast trove of art to describe Tasha Tudor's life oeuvre.   Harry Davis in The Art of Tasha Tudor shares a tantalizing piece of Tasha Tudor history.  He tells of her burning old, unused - and in her eyes - inferior pieces of art.   


Several years ago the Norman Rockwell Museum exhibited the most comprehensive viewing of Tudor art to date.  The exhibit consisted of more than a hundred pieces of original art as well as crafts such paper boxes and clothing.  The exhibit later toured to museums in Michigan, Missouri and Louisiana.  The show was an introduction to the incredibly rich art in which Tasha Tudor shared her view of a beautiful flower-laden world! 


SPRING SALE CONTINUES AT CELLAR DOOR BOOKS

Thank you to those who have sent in orders during our Spring Sale.  There are wonderful pieces available including books and rare cards.

Let us entice you to browse through the Christmas card images if you are unfamiliar with them.  The selection is largely of "new" cards never owned nor used by anyone.  We have cards as old as the 1940s and as new as the Caspari reprints of a few years ago.  These are almost all single cards.  There are a few cards from Jenny Wren Press still available in packs of 10.  Almost everything has a sale price. 

There are signed books included in our sale. Most original art is also on sale

Postage wil be calculated on original prices.  Here is our sale discount schedule. (Selected items are excluded from our sale.)

50% Prints                 50% Books
50% Current cards      50% Packaged cards
50% Writing paper      50% Single collectable cards 
50% Other                  50% Stickers
50% Bird items           50% Recipes
50% The Golden Key   50% Tins (item 25898 only) 

30% Calendars           30% Puzzles
30% Tea time             30% Porcelain and glass
30% Periodicals          30% Dolls

20% Rare cards          20% Bethany Tudor (with exceptions) 

10% Antiques             10% Ephemera
10% Signed prints      10% Signed books
10% Signed items      10% Original art


We hope you will enjoy hearing future news and upcoming events. 
If you would rather not receive our newsletter in your email,  please click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this page.

Wm John Hare
Cellar Door Books                      www.cellardoorbooks.com
61 Borough Road                     
Concord, NH 03303-1833
Toll free:  (800) 818-8419
 
Entire contents © 2010 Cellar Door Books 


Visiting New England?  Please plan to visit Cellar Door Books by appointment.  We are an hour and a half east of Marlboro, VT, and an hour and a half north of Boston.  An hour to the coast or mountains.  Your GPS guide will bring you right to our driveway - and then tell you to turn left, for some perverse reason !  The vagaries of technology !