Oberlin was a passionate collector of Arthur Rackham to whose art he was introduced early on by his mother and his aunt. Two Rackham titles (Undine and Alice in Wonderland), one inscribed to him by his mother and the other signed by his aunt, are present in the collection, a touching tribute to their significance to him as they are hardly “collector's copies.”
At the age of 21 he went to London and arranged to meet Rackham, from whom he purchased the two greatest items in his collection, an original full-size watercolor for “Goblin Market,” and Rackham's own copy of his extremely rare first book To the Other Side, for which he paid a fee that included Rackham inscribing the book with its history, and creating a charming sketch of himself casting the book from London to “the other side,” the USA (see illsutration).
Along with the book is an archive of ten sometimes lengthy autograph letters from Rackham to Oberlin about his visit, detailing the history of the book, complaining about copyright issues in America, and talking about his art, his finances, and his life.
Another watershed meeting was with Sarah Briggs Latimore, who with Grace Clark Haskell, was writing the bibliography of Arthur Rackham in the early 1930s, when Rackham was elderly and Oberlin was in full collecting mode. It was published in 1936 and Oberlin is acknowledged in the credits. Her correspondence with him is here, dozens of handwritten letters detailing all the Rackhams she had for sale or had found for her own collection; Oberlin bought a very substantial part of his collection directly from her. He also dealt extensively with two other dealers, Kidd in Baltimore and George Bates in England, as well as the Halle Company and others.
By the time Oberlin died in 2006, he had amassed a world-class collection. Using Hudson as a reference, he had all but four of the primary titles in one or more editions (as well as several not listed), approximately 70 percent of the secondary titles in one or more editions (again including several not listed), a substantial number of the known magazine and ephemeral pieces, and quite a few pieces of ephemera and other material not known to Hudson or anyone else. In all, the catalogue comprises over 200 entries, ranging from an original Cadbury's chocolate box designed by Rackham to Rackham's own copy of Private Pagett with an unpublished original ink sketch for the book; signed books and Christmas cards; proofs marked up for color correction; the true first of the Peter Pan Portfolio (Paris, 1911) in the original box, and so on. For sale en bloc, catalogue in preparation. $285,000
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BURNETT,Frances Hodgson. (Russian text) [LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY]. < RETURN TO EXHIBITOR LIST |