Collections record Beta

Crayon Drawing - "Grasshopper Doing it for the Last Time"

1973-19-8

Large crayon drawing of a figure and grasshopper. At center is an abstract figure, rendered in black artist's crayon. The figure is depicted mid-movement and has very little definition. Smudges of color over most of the figure. To the right is a small black ink drawing of a grasshopper playing a bass fiddle. Small spot of green ink wash on grasshopper's face and brown on bass instrument. Titled in lower-left corner, "grasshopper doing it/for the last time" and signed underneath, "Osborn." Framed under glass in simple wood frame.

After graduating from Yale, Robert Osborn studied painting in Rome and Paris before returning to Connecticut to teach art and philosophy at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville. He developed his distinct illustration style while drawing Navy training manuals during World War II, most of which featured a character named Dilbert whose blunders illustrated improper safety procedures. After the war, Osborn’s satirical cartoons appeared regularly in magazines such as The New Republic, Life, and Esquire. He also wrote and illustrated books on topics ranging from fishing and hunting to war and social issues. Between 1947 and 1994, illustrator Robert Chesley Osborn lived with his wife in Salisbury, Connecticut. Among his close friends were Rufus and Leslie Stillman of Litchfield.

• Osborn, Robert Chesley, 1904-1994

ca. 1960

31 1/2" x 23 1/2"

• ink
• paper
• crayon