Saturday 12 January 2013

Harlequin Artists Part XXXII - Max Ralph (2)

I recently found an ad in a 1950 issue of Maclean's that solved a Harlequin artist mystery. Earlier this year I discussed an artist who signed his two Harlequin covers as "NMR". And here I discussed an artist who signed his work as "Ralph". I speculated that this was Max Ralph. Now I know the two artists are N. Max Ralph. The Maclean's ad notes that the art is the work of "N Max Ralph" and the signature is clearly the same. There is also a third signature - "R". Why three different ways of signing his work?

Here are examples of each plus the ad.

Maclean's - October 15, 1950 - p. 65

Harlequin 44 - April 1950

Harlequin 44

Harlequin 42

Harlequin 42 - April 1950

Harlequin 103

Harlequin 103 - March 1951

2 comments:

  1. Well done! Speaking to your last question, I suspect that some commercial artists used different signatures on work done on the sly. One might be employed by a firm but have the possibility of picking up a few dollars on the side by dashing off something for someone else. I'm not suggesting that this happened in these cases - perish the thought.

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  2. Thanks. Always fun to connect the 60 year old dots. I now have 2/3 of the artists on the first 500 Harlequin books identified.

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