$325
Estimate: $300 - $500
Auction: November 12, 2020 10:00:00 AM EDT
No place, no date (New York, ca. 1942). Rare relief printing proof on heavy pink card, depicting a Derso & Kelen caricature of Roosevelt greeting an exiled King Peter of Yugoslavia in front of the Statue of Liberty during WWII. "Certified" ink stamps on verso. 8 1/4 x 7 in. (209 x 177 mm).
Original Derso & Kelen printing proof, featuring a romanticized meeting between thirty-second president Franklin D. Roosevelt and exiled King Peter of Yugoslavia. Peter (1923-70) was catapulted into power after a coup d'etat by the Yugoslavian military after the sitting government formed an alliance with Nazi Germany. The Germans subsequently invaded the country, forcing him to flee to Greece and then the Middle East. He formally met FDR on a diplomatic mission in 1942 in order to secure resources for the exiled government, ultimately proving unsuccessful as the United States increasingly lent support to the Communist Yugoslav Government.
Aloysius Derso (1888-1964) and Emery Kelen (1896-1978) were world renowned for their caricatures of world leaders and diplomats between the World Wars and after, which were printed in newspapers and magazine throughout Europe and America. They were both staples in the halls of the League of Nations and in diplomatic haunts, humorously referring to themselves as "headhunters" when seeking out people to sketch.