My comments here are going to be short but sweet. I did not know that the Original Art to Amazing Fantasy#15 was donated to the U.S. Library of Congress in 2008 by an anonymous donor.
The story goes that the anonymous donor approached Steve Ditko to give him the art, and Ditko didn’t want it!
https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0805/spiderman.html
You can view the entire story in Original Art here.
WOW!
Holy cow! I did not know that Dennis.
That article said appointments were needed to view the art,I would have expected that they be up on display in a gallery section for all visitors to see.
I knew that.
In the original art collecting community, it was big news at the time! Apparantly, the art was “rescued” along with some early covers, by a prominant marvel staffer.
35 years ago marvel art was stolden from the marvel offices in batches and was disappearing where almoat half was gone. The other half not stolden was returned to artists and inkers in a 2/3 to 1/3 ratio. Some letters received a few pages too.
I prefer not to mention names but most people know who donated it anomously. The person who had it could never have sold it anyway, as they had no right to have it.
The part of the story about Ditko being offered it is likely true, but somewhat inconsistant with the fact he accepted and kept until present all of the other art returned by Marvel to him. Ditko holds doctor strange art as well as at least 7 complete spiderman stories, as well as other originals returned to him. Ditko also has a drawn complete doctor strange story he kept when he quit marvel which would have been in stange tales 147. His nephew will be benefaciary.
The new news in 2016-17 is currently Jack Kirbys estate is trying to prevent all auction
houses from selling his stolden art. This impacts the whole market and is a toplic which should be the subject of a post. The situation is in flux changing daily right now. Auction houses are all formulating litigation strategies. Auctions houses often have stolden item claims to resolve in many collectable categories.
As an avid by small scale art collector myself, the colorful but soarded stories of original art are the stuff of legend.
Amazing fantasy #15 art was originally drawn by Kirby, redrawn by Ditko upon Stan Lees request. It exists therefore in 2 versions.
Walt,I had no idea either.I thought it was worth sharing.
Stevie, I would love to see that Kirby artwork from AF#15!
Make it three. I had never heard of this either. All that complete Ditko art gives me a little hope Steve Ditko will have an Artist Edition some day. Well one can dream about it anyway. Thanks again for this upload Dennis.
God knows there is a ton of great work that would be great to see in that format MIke.
Ditko follows The Fountainhead philosophy by Ayn Rand, of life with integrity. His work speaks for him. In the 1930’s movie, an architect will not build commercial box-style skyscrapers, but only archiectural masterpieces, even at the cost of having no work or livlihood. Ditko’s philoshopy may be inconsistant with artist editions because it allows others to profit from an unintended use of his work. Ditko may feel his work should only be published in the original story form intended. However, I dream too of an artist edition scenario for unseen Ditko art.
It certainly would be great to see Stevie!