Catalogue for the auction of
Cricket, Football, Golf & Sporting Memorabilia
To be held on Friday, Saturday & Sunday
21st, 22nd & 23rd March 2025
Lot 1157
Estimate: £60/90
‘London Laughs: Saturday Afternoon’. Excellent, large and original pen and ink drawing artwork, by artist Joseph Lee, depicting what appears to be the football club Chairman holding an umbrella over the teams goalkeeper during the match to protect him from heavy rain which is falling incessantly. The amusing artwork shows another director (?) trying to stop the Chairman with a member of the press taking photographs, ‘Well, would’nt you take care of something that had cost you £5,000!’. The artwork, signed by Lee, was published in the London Evening News and is dated 14th January 1939. Overall 15”x21”. Some wear to corners otherwise in good condition. A wonderfully evocative scene beautifully illustrated by the artist
Joseph Lee (1901-1975) worked for the Strand Magazine and Pall Mall Gazette in the 1920’s before joining the Sunday Express in 1924, followed by the Daily Mail. From 1934 to 1966 Lee worked for the London Evening News. ‘In 1934 Lee sent four trial cartoons to the London Evening News, one of which was published on 14 May 1934 as the first of a series entitled “London Laughs.” In these cartoons Lee proved particularly adept at depicting sporting-loving colonels, chubby and slightly vulgar ladies with sparkling jewellery, and dapper City gents’. [British Cartoon Archive]. This being one of the ‘London Laughs’. Lee died in March 1975