Sea Songs

Quarter Calf. Wood Boards. Very Good. Could this be an unabashed gay celebration from the Thirties? Here with a single exception, only men are presented, and in two images, with a suggestion of intimacy, and elsewhere, with a constructivist-style muscularity that somehow also brings to mind Tom of Finland, the pioneer in depicting hyper-masculine muscle men, among them, sailors and dock worker-types, the specific subject matter of this unpublished, unfinished manuscript. And the one exception, with a woman in the illustration, depicts what could be depicted (truncated) as dissention between the muscular man and the diminutive girlfriend. N.d., circa 1930. Folio. 33 by 24 cm. [4], 9-35 pp. The songs represented here include "Whiskey for My Johnny", "Paddy Doyle", "Across Western Ocean", "Poor Old Joe", "One Day More", "Banks of the Sacramento", "Blow the Man Down", "Captain Kidd", "It's Time for us to Leave Her Johnny", and a few songs without the title written in. Even with the gaps in illustration, title or text, the work delivers a strong punch, and there is absolutely nothing tentative or sketchy about what is present. This was done by someone with a clear vision, and testament to that is that the leaves are a Normandy Vellum France paper, which is both a heavy and luxuriant stock. The paper was in common use between 1915 to 1925, anchoring our dating. However, we believe the aesthetic is late twenties to early thirties. Also included are two separate sheets, with three pages of pencil sketches, with some red watercolor employed in one of the drawings, for the artwork presumably that did not get entered into the book. (Inventory #: 004614)