Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Caricatures by Dal Holcomb


Dal Holcomb, (Delmora Bistwick Holcomb), 1901-1978, was a prolific twentieth century commercial illustrator. He began his career in the thirties, specializing in sexy pin-up girls, and creating advertising art for several major accounts and countless magazine illustrations and covers. 

Holcomb was also an excellent caricaturist, and beginning in the fifties, created lively, colorful gouache silhouette portraits of many current film and television stars, continuing into the late sixties. This is the work I'm presenting here. I couldn't find any information on where these caricatures originally appeared though, but I'm speculating that they were created either for art gallery showings of his work, or for regional newspaper TV suppliment covers. Any information appreciated.

Thanks to John Wendler

Clark Gable, Elsie the Cow, 1940's advertising art
Edward G. Robinson
William Bendix
Donald O'Connor
Loretta Young
Tony Curtis
Ceasar Romero
Fred Astaire
Eve Arden
Jack Palance
Judy Garland
Shirley Booth
Dana Andrews

Miyoshi Umeki

Jack Webb
Chuck Conners
Jim Backus
Ed Sullivan
Jack Paar
Art Linkletter
Mitch Miller
Liberace
Steve Allen
Milton Berle
Danny Kaye
Imogene Coca
George Gobel
Lucille Ball

Mort Sahl
Joey Bishop
Flip Wilson

self-portrait

11 comments:

  1. What a treat....where'd you come by these?

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  2. All of these were new to me, although I was somewhat familiar with his advertising and magazine work. I saw his Milton Berle while googling Berle, and one led to the other.

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  3. Drew, Thank you so much for all these and your dedication to this blog. This is glorious stuff!

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  4. Wow. New to me too. Can't believe I've never heard of him. Thanks for posting these. There's no line work and painting is too opaque for watercolor. But it might be. Got a guess?

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  5. In gouache yet!? I never enjoyed working in gouache, but these images make me rethink that.

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  6. Super-inspirational, thanks for posting these.

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  7. Had never heard of the guy! These are indeed wonderful!

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  8. thanks for exposing me to the Holcomb caricatures ,excellent. Jack Palance reminds me of Jethro" from the Beverly Hillbilly's

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  9. I forgot to mention how much I hate Milton Berle, but really liked the portrait.

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