BROOKLINE, N.H. (AP) — In the portrait, the little boy’s
blue eyes twinkle as he looks straight ahead. His apple cheeks shine.
There’s a gap in his teeth, and his reddish-brown hair is just slightly
tousled. He’s an All-American boy.
He’s Dick, of the illustrated "Dick and Jane" series that helped teach generations to read from
the 1930s to the 1970s.
He’s
also Nancy Childress’ childhood neighbor and the model for the drawing
by her father, Robert Childress, that along with Jane, Sally, Spot and
others brought the pages of the reader to life.
Nancy Childress is
selling her father’s artwork at auction in New Hampshire at the end of
April. Along with Dick, there are other portraits, black-and-white
drawings of John F. and Jackie Kennedy and offerings from his collection
of pastel paintings of college buildings around the country.
"As
an artist, there were many illustrators during the time my father was
working," said Nancy Childress, who lives in Gilmanton. "This was the
day of the illustrator. What’s different about my father’s illustrations
is that most could either do landscape or people, and he had the
uncanny ability to do both equally well."
Childress’ realism will
remind the viewer immediately of Norman Rockwell’s illustrations and
that’s not a complete coincidence: The two were friends.
Nancy
Childress said her father, who retired to Warner and died in 1983, never
took an art class, learning to paint with a set given to him as a gift
from an aunt and uncle before he was 10. And he didn’t just use the
neighbor boy as a model for the series that he illustrated during the
1950s and ’60s: Nancy was Sally, her sister Susan became Jane and their
mother was also one of Robert Childress’ inspirations.
"We loved
it," she said. "My sister and I loved getting into costumes. And he
would always include us. He would ask us, ‘What do you think of this? Is
it too green? Is it too blue?’ But the opinion that mattered was my
mother’s."
Born in South Carolina, Childress was living in Ithaca,
N.Y., when he was commissioned to paint a portrait of H.E. Babcock, a
former chairman of the board for Cornell University. Through his
connection with Babcock, he met Duncan Hines, the home food entrepreneur
whose cakes and other products still stock grocery shelves. Childress
painted the portrait of Hines that would adorn his product packaging and
Childress launched a career in advertising.
He moved the family
to Old Saybrook, Conn., where Childress painted ads for Coca-Cola,
Mobil, Wonder Bread and the Campbell Soup Co., among others. Some of the
ads are included in the auction.
Auctioneer Ronald Pelletier of
Brookline Auction Gallery said estimates for the roughly 50 lots of
Childress art run from $100 to $2,000 and because it is an "absolute
auction" there is no reserve bid, meaning the lowest bid wins. He said
there is a market for original art, but he couldn’t predict how the
Childress collections would fare.
He is most struck by how multidisciplined Childress was.
"I mean, the man could work in any medium," he said.
The live online auction will be held April 30.
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